Cheating Death
by prinzenhasserin
Summary: There is this problem with cheating Death... Harry Potter is on a mission to die -hopefully centuries from now on, and in his sleep. He travels the world looking for Death joined by his minion Bellatrix, while his children turn Hogwarts upside down. Mostly canon-compliant. Has humour, although the first chapter is a bit dark.
1. Prologues Of Sort

**Author Note: **Yes. It's another story about Harry as Master of Death. No, it's not an alternative universe (besides Bellatrix Lestrange being alive - just imagine Molly Weasley's crowning moment of awesome without killing her; it takes half the fun, but oh well). Yes, I haven't finished it.

**Warning: **Death. Not so much gore, me thinks. Mental torture. No big. Happy (?) end. Do swear-words constitute an M rating? I didn't think so. Allusions to rape and miscarriage. Talk about suicide. (This sounds _dark_! It isn't! I wanted to rate it humour!)Went a bit darker than planned. Nothing explicit.

**Disclaimer: **Most of the characters used in this and the following chapters belong to J.K. Rowling and various other owners more famous than me - I don't own the idea, and am not making a profit from it either.

**Beta:** **Mrs. Bates93 - Thank you, you are wonderful **(tihihi - I've always wanted to say that...) All remaining mistakes are mine.

* * *

_**.**_

_**Cheating Death**_

.

* * *

_I. Prologues of Sorts_

* * *

o0O0o

"One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive."

– Friedrich Nietzsche

o0O0o

All stories are true.  
All stories are true.  
All stories are true.

They are. But – if all stories were true, then all stories would also be lies.

The wondrous thing about stories is that both facts are not mutually exclusive.

See the thing is a story can be both the truth and the lie. They are not two different sides of the same coin, but different coins altogether: I can tell the truth and still lie, and I can lie and tell the truth.

Let me tell you a story about love, compassion, charity, belief and pity. Of terror, fear, hubris and pride.

All the ideas mankind can have and do have – but divide the world into pieces, and those pieces into even smaller pieces, until you cannot divide them anymore. Will you find love? Will you find truth? Will you find mercy? Will you find pain?

o0O0o0O0o

Story-telling isn't just a trade. It's an attitude to life and all things, my father used to say. Stories are like mirrors, mirrors of ourselves and within stories we comprehend due to the distance how stupid we are acting.

He was a great story-teller, he could charm people, keep people together, make them believe.

Great with words, he was, a great man; and probably way to great for me, because I was just a silly little girl who couldn't for the life of me form coherent sentences.

I was forced to tag along, yes, but I wasn't praised nor anything else, for all the things I did for him, nothing, because I wasn't able to tell stories, the essence of all he was.

At times I hated him, but he was not a bad man, just obsessed with his fantasies, his unicorns, and ideas. For ideas, he would have died. For ideas, he would have betrayed his own mother. But none of them ever came to him, in a strange act of justice, I was the one with the ideas.

I dreamed of fancy dresses and fights and burning Angels of Death and popes and children fighting for their lives and the depths of hell up to the mountain tops: I was a never-ending stream of untold stories.

We were the perfect pair.

Until we died.

.

Well.

He died. I – sort of – didn't.

O0O0o0O0o

.

Somewhere, somewhen, somehow, a motherless child was abbandoned.

Maybe it was left on someone's doorstep, his parents killed in a mugging or in an accident, maybe they were murdered or perhaps they just lost him.

Somewhere, somehow, someone spoke of a prophecy – filled with the love of the mother, faith of the people and the hope of salvation – spoken thrice, for emphasis: "One day, you will be strong. One day, you will be wise. One day, you will be great."

This prophecy may as well have been about this child.

.

Somewhere, somewhen, somebody said: "If knowledge is power, then to be unknown is to be unconquerable."

As dogmas go, it was quite short, snappy and easy to remember. It was not used for one particular being, but it might as well have been about this.

.

Somewhere, somehow, someone told the people to listen, to wait, and to judge at the least possible moment. And because the present always passes, the future never comes, and the past grows every single moment, the time of judgement will never come.

People did not listen very well. They do not listen to what is said, but they also do not listen to what is not said.

This was not true about this child.

o0O0o

We find ourselves in the lands of beyond.

Tales of the Hereafter, the next great adventure, the land of the West, have reached far and wide.

Many have tried to cheat it's door steward. Many have been caught, and have been punished. This is not their tale.

This tale is about those who succeeded – and have been cursed beyond recognition because of it.

o0O0o

Harry Potter only cottoned on to the fact that he did not age like his fellow wizards, ten years after becoming the Master of Death. First, he had not believed that the story of the three brothers was more than just a legend to explain three extraordinary objects, and later, he would have laid the blame of his different characteristics on wizard genetics. Still, he researched the legends about Death, his relationship to rule-breakers and the natural laws concerning magic and the dead.

Then, he panicked.

Because fifteen years later, he did not look one day over seventeen. He did not have wrinkles – or crow's-feet, as Molly called them. He did not have problems with his eye-sight, endurance, stamina, activities, aches, grey hair or any other liabilities commonly referred to as old age. Granted, he was only thirty-two, and he certainly did not feel old – but why did he still look like he was seventeen?

He did not look like himself at that age (thank the deities!), he had more muscle mass, more grace, more self-assurance than a teenager, but even so, he looked very, very young.

One time, Witch Weekly asked him what his secret wasfor staying as young and fit as he was. He had to force a laugh and said**,** "My family, of course." He had cringed at his stupid half-lie and expected to be grilled by Hermione – but it didn't happen.

She pulled him aside, the day he openly nodded to his school rival – Draco Malfoy (Which he had only done because the latter had gifted him with one original copy of 'One Hundred Years Of Solitude' – where Death orders a protagonist to sew her own death shroud. On the day she finishes, she would die peacefully and painlessly.) "Harry! What are you doing?", she hissed. "You are attracting attention!"

Harry, who was absolutely surprised by the ambush, shook his head puzzled. "Hermione, what _am_ I doing?"

"You're not ageing, that's what!" She did not raise her voice, but she did not need to: Harry flinched anyway. "So you did realise, I wasn't sure if you had.", she continued.

Harry, who had been studiously looking at the paving stones, looked up insulted: "Excuse me.", he said coolly. "But I'd think I would notice that I'm not looking older! Maybe it's just... good genes."

"Ron and Ginny didn't notice–", she started, but was interrupted by Harry who waved his hand.

"Oh, please! They have noticed, they just haven't made the connections, it's normal to sometimes look a little younger than the rest – wait a few years, a few more wrinkles, some bags under her eyes and she will despise me from the depth of her heart.", he said that calmly, having not just yet made his peace, but slowly becoming accustomed to the fact that he would outlive all of his friends.

"She won't hate you.", Hermione contradicted him.

He waved her off again. "The girl who fell in love with the prince who rescued her from the dragon? Please."

"You sound resentful."

"I _am_! Fuck, Hermione! This was the last thing I ever wanted! I love her, I do, but I'm not blind to her faults! It's just – I try so hard to make things work, for the children and all, and work, and Ginny – but I'm so tired! I just want to...", he trailed off, because it sounded as if he wanted to die – and he did, somewhere in the near future, but it was all he could think about. "And then you! I only nodded at Malfoy! He gave me the book I have searched everywhere for! But you get all... up in my face!"

"It was totally obvious in that moment.", Hermione defended herself. "He was all... old, losing his hair – and you..."

This was torture for him. Surrounded by witches and wizards, Hermione quizzing him about the thing, he did not talk about, and not wanting anybody else finding out his secret. His breathing was so erratic, it must have been conspicuous. He inhaled slowly. They would all hate him. Again, he was a freak, just for a different reason.

"This is what I look like with glamours.", he confessed to one of his best friends. "They aren't very good, because I have to keep them up at all times, and I had to invent my own – I don't think there are legitimate reasons for wanting to look older. Please, can we..."

"You are– Harry, how old do you think you look..."

"Seventeen.", he answered, as he brushed through his hair agitated. "Like a very young seventeen. Remember how tiny I was? A bit bigger than that."

"Harry! Stop flirting with my wife and wave good-bye to your sons!" They were interrupted by Ron Weasley, and turned towards the train – Hermione glancing at him, silently telling him that this conversation was far from over.

He went to stand next to his wife, who may as well have been cheating on him, and daughter, who was a little genius – but so stupid at times – took a deep breath and tried to smile at his youngest son, whose biggest problem it was to be sorted into Slytherin.

If his children's biggest problems were where they would be sorted, perhaps all was well.

o0O0o

"Concentrate.", Hermione's voice washed over Harry's consciousness and was integrated into his mind. They were practising mental exercises, because the Invisibility Cloak had travelled 150 miles out of a Gringott's vault undetected. Harry had felt the urge to use it during work. "What do you feel?" There wasn't a You to speak of, more like wide open space. Feelings. Memories? Warmth. And electricity?

He floated in the sea – maybe a lake, was it a womb? It felt like the ocean behind Shell Cottage – and there was a half-light which was fading, a rhythmic beat; waves flushing in and out. The ground vibrated – a feeling not unlike watching Ron sleep.

It was hard to speak, since he did not hear himself. Three more lakes were integrated in the big lake – this was weird, they did not have a conscious per se...

"There's something...", he said with a heavy tongue.

.

Hermione felt rather than saw three objects appearing right in Harry's lap. Only two of them, she recognised. A cold hand clutched at her chest – only when she took a shaky breath, she realised, that she had stopped breathing.

A cloak. A wand. A ring.

"Oh, Harry.", she hiccoughed. "It always happens to you."

o0O0o

"Short of contacting Death, there seems to be nothing you can do.", Hermione concluded her research. "You appear to be completely immortal."

"But you can't contact Death. I tried. There's the Rite of AshkEnte – originally you need 8 wizards for that and 2 cc of mouse blood; I tried watching old wizards die, they didn't; went through the veil, came out on the other side... I tried writing a letter per owl post, but nothing came back! I feel like the Russian soldier.", Harry mumbled dejectedly into his arm.

"The Russian soldier?"

"You know, the story where a soldier puts Death in a sack, and nobody dies at all, until finally the soldier sets him free again. Then the soldier grows old, but death doesn't come for him. He goes to heaven and pleads for admittance, but he has sinned, so they don't let him in – he goes to the devil, but the devil fears it's a trick (or thinks that the soldier wants to overthrow him), and he has to wander the earth, and probably wanders still?"

"Ah.", Hermione nodded. "Arthur Ransome's fairy tales. I didn't know you had read that."

"Well–", Harry rubbed his scar, a little embarrassed. "I collect stories featuring Death – like with the three brothers? Partially because they might be useful, but I do enjoy them. Lily loves them, too."

"Yes. I heard her tell Rose about Jelena, the All-wise.", she smiled. "She also told her that there couldn't be a person more wise than you, but Jelena comes a close second.", she paused. "I have never seen someone more stupidly heroic than you."

Harry flashed her a crooked, slightly bitter, grin.

"You don't have to leave them.", Hermione told him gently, but he shook his head.

"No. Ginny is going to go mental – about me going dark, becoming the next dark Lord. She'll get better, but it won't be the same. She'll start – well. She's already two-timing me with someone older. Funny, isn't it? The norm is going for younger – but I guess if you have a seventeen-year-old husband, you'll want the decrepit sort. She is starting to resent me – I'd hate to have her hate me, too. I am starting to hate her, too. It's weird how you can hate and love someone simultaneously.", he sighed. "I'm staying for Lils, though. Until she goes to Hogwarts, I'll stay with Ginny. But Lily has told me already that if I'm unhappy, I should leave her – she's a bit like you. I've always wondered how I could father such a clever child."

"Maybe her and Rose were switched at birth.", Hermione laughed.

"I wouldn't have noticed the difference between an one-year-old and one-day-old anyway.", Harry said, as he started to laugh as well.

They were interrupted by Ginny coming home. She was wet, even though in London and all the surrounding areas it had been hot and dry all week – very good weather for September.

"Oh.", she said, looking wide-eyed and too innocent. "Hermione? What a surprise – Ron was telling me all about your hard work the other day. Aren't you glad one of your children is out of the house?"

Hermione scooted slowly off of the sofa and started to stand up. Harry, who hated the psychological game his wife was playing, put a hand on her arm and when she stopped, smiled at her – whoever had said Gryffindors couldn't be devious? "Stay?" he asked pleadingly. "I have made enough Lasagne to feed a Quidditch team. You don't mind, do you, Ginny?" He could see her eyes flashing, and was very grateful Hermione had been there, when Ginny came home.

After they had seated themselves, Ginny complained about the Lasagne – she was sick of Italian food. The last time he had made Lasagne was maybe a year ago. But he didn't say anything.

Likewise, he complained about their lack of proper wineglasses. (She had bought the latest bunch at Sainsbury's).

Whenever Ginny wasn't looking, Hermione glared at him. He smiled sweetly and waited for Ron to bring Lily home – a fact Ginny appeared to have forgotten.

Lily came flying through the fire-place and fully covered in soot, snuggled into Harry's lap, who greeted her happily.

"Hi Harry!", he came through the floo to immediately head towards his wife. They kissed.

"Hermione spent the whole afternoon with Harry.", Ginny told him smugly.

Ron looked up and around the table. "Yeah, I know.", he said. "Why? Did something happen?"

"No, nothing at all.", Harry said, calming him down. "Ginny just came home and was surprised."

"If that's all... we brought mum's pie!"

Dessert turned out to be much more amiable.

o0O0o

"Merlin's bloody saggy left–"

"Uncle Ron!", giggled Lily. "You aren't supposed to say that!"

"Lily! What are you doing out of bed!"

"Erm..." she looked around the kitchen at the adults, who were all trying to make her go back to bed. But then daddy would go away, like Uncle Fred (who had died, and that had made Uncle George so sad, sometimes he was in a bad mood still). "I'm thirsty? Can I have a glass of water?"

While she looked at her daddy – she should probablystart calling him dad – she sipped her glass of water. He looked a lot like Teddy did, most of the time. When he wasn't trying to impress Victoire.

She heard Ron whisper**,** "The Hallows really made you**…**"

"Yes, Ron**,**" her daddy replied. "Now shut up."

"I'd say it's pretty awesome, mate, except it's really not."

"Thank you, Ron. That was almost profound. I am proud of you."

Well, at least daddy was smiling. "_That had to count for something,"_ she thought to herself, and went back to bed.

o0O0o

Harry was currently deciphering an ancient text featuring rituals about The Morrígna,when Ron stormed into his kitchen and dumped a stack of papers on the table he was currently working at.

"You won't believe this!", Ron was undoubtedly upset. "They're releasing the prisoners of Azkaban!"

"Wait– what?", _why so soon?_ Hermione had held her hearing in front of the Wizengamot only a fortnight ago. "They're releasing them? But Hermione only–", Harry stopped what he was about to say.

"Hermione– what? What has my wife done? Is this about the gannet convention she was talking about all the time?"

"Geneva convention.", Harry corrected automatically. "It's a treatise regarding the treatment of war prisoners, among others." Harry laid down his pen. "Rewind – you were saying they are releasing the prisoners?"

"Yes.", Ron looked down at his papers. "They are asking for the support of the general public, call it a great step into the future of humanism – there is a slight quip against the goblins who haven't signed, blasted buggers – a statement from the chieftain of the merpeople in Scotland... ahh, yes. Most prisoners currently held in Azkaban are going to be released on the twentieth year on the anniversary of the defeat...yada,yada – Since halfway houses for wizards are not yet ready for inhabitants, we ask for upstanding citizens to volunteer as their keepers."

"Marvellous.", Harry said. "That's next year, isn't it? Well, then I'll be renovating Grimmauld Place – maybe we should rename the house, it's a bad omen – leaving Ginny, and moving in with the only female prisoner in Azkaban."

"Harry.", Ron said.

"What?"

"Please tell me you are not going to self-destruct. Please don't."

"Ron.", Harry said, as his brows furrowed.

"Just..", the addressed floundered for words. "You were... you are married to my sister. You are my best friend. You are the uncle to my children. Don't throw it all away just because you will live forever."

"I am not throwing anything away. Your sister won't even look at me. She comes home and in the middle of the night, when she thinks I am asleep, she goes somewhere. I don't want to know, since she comes home in the morning, smelling of... and then she berates me for never being home! She doesn't even know I quit my job! She doesn't notice when the glamours come off! Granted, it could be my fault, for not ageing, my fault for marrying her straight out of school, my fault for working a job I didn't want and took only because she didn't want me to stay at home! Do you know how much money I have? She pays for everything we own, because she feels like 'supporting herself' and not spending the blood-money of the Black family! She grows weirder every day – last Sunday she wanted us to go to church – I tell her I want to move out and she says: 'Fine, take the money out of my account.' She treats my like a god-damn boy-toy!"

Ron let out a guffaw. "And that's why you need Bellatrix the madwoman in your home."

"Eww!", Harry widened his eyes. "She's older than my parents! No!" He calms down a little. "No, I want one prisoner. A companion who doesn't have anyone. And they hand them out in pairs – same-sex. So if I want one, I have to take the single woman of the lot. Bellatrix Lestrange."

"Right.", Ron said dubiously. "Since being the Boy-Who-Lived and only wanting one prisoner would constitute an act of treason."

"They healed her, you know.", Harry told his friend. "The damage done to her mind was almost as extensive as to the Longbottoms. She lost three children in prison."

"She had children? In prison?"

"She didn't have children in prison. She miscarried. They suspect it was self-induced, too."

"What was self-induced?", Hermione had taken the floo to Harry's home, also laden with paperwork.

"Is my home a rent free office now?", Harry complained, while Ron said: "So listen to this. Harry wants to adopt a death-eater."

"Daddy!", Lily tumbled out of the fire-place. "Look at my scar!" On her forehead a lightning bolt was emblazoned. Blood dripped onto the floor.

"What is going on here!", Ginny began screaming – no one had noticed her arrival.

o0O0o

"I leave you alone for a few hours, Harry, and the house is a mess. Lily is a mess. It's like you're a teenager! You're worse than James!"

Harry was getting rather skilled in blocking out his wife's voice. In fact, nowadays it had a somewhat soothing tilt to it. He was filling out paperwork with the ministry to get his prisoner, and Gringotts, because they technically were a self-governing establishment with a priority of the clients' confidentiality, and they would give out the money to him and only him in various disguises. And then there was the divorce paper, she probably wouldn't sign, because it held a monthly stipend (for her) of 200 galleons.

"I find you at home, scribbling non-sense – are you listening to me?", she screeched.

He stood. Calmly, he said: "That's it. I'm going." He summoned his paperwork, banged it into a trunk, and summoned the rest of his things and some of Lily's that she would not miss, slammed the divorce papers on the kitchen table, and left the house.

o0O0o

It was maybe a little bit of a rash decision, Harry contemplated, standing at 2 am. at the front door of his god-son's apartment.

"Teddy! Open up, man!"

When finally Teddy opened his door, he was crumpled and scrunched up, clad in boxer-shorts and the proud owner of a Potter head. "Whazzit?", he yawned.

"Lily carved up her head. I'm divorcing Ginny. Also, I'm homeless. Can I borrow your couch?"

The poor boy blinked: "Whazzit?"

"Never mind.", Harry pushed his godson into the flat and into his bed.

Then he yanked his trunks inside, fell onto the couch in a ill-composed heap of limbs and clothes and proceeded to fall asleep.

o0O0o

Harry woke up to a cold spell and the radio blaring. The smell of coffee permeated into his nose. When he blinked, his eyes opened to his godson holding him a cup of coffee.

"Tea is out.", he said.

Harry softly cradled the cup of delicious nectar and took a sip.

"So.", Teddy began. "Care to tell me why my godfather is sleeping on my couch and Uncle Ron called, because apparently you want to adopt my great-aunt and divorce you wife?"

Harry dropped his glamours.

The reaction left nothing to be desired. Teddy stared. Then gulped. Then stared a little more.

"I don't suppose you found the fountain of Youth?" After Harry shook his head, he continued: "Philosopher's Stone? Poly-juice with hair from when you were sixteen? An ageing curse gone wrong? A portrait that ages instead of you? Iðunn' apples?" After all those questions were answered with a negative response, Teddy inhaled a breath. "Oh. Boy."

"Yeah.", Harry exhaled shakily. "Worst is, they think I moan about it too much. Who wouldn't want to be immortal? It's mankind's biggest dream! It sucks!"

Teddy flinched. "Erm... Have you tried, you know..."

"Killing myself? Hermione asked that already. I tried poison, tried hanging, tried drowning, tried freezing, ran into a couple of killing curses. Went through the veil a couple of times. I tried cutting myself, but it's really painful, and decided to stop there."

"So when I'm 130, you'll be seventeen still?", Teddy asked, faintly terrified that his godfather tried killing himself.

"No. I will be 147, but I will look seventeen. Probably. But until now, I haven't aged a day, so chances are..."

"And that's why you're going to adopt Auntie Bella?", Teddy asked incredulously.

"For goodness sake, it's called the Death-Eater Redemption Programme, and it was initiated by the International Confederation of Wizards regarding the Geneva Conventions! It's not adoption! I would much rather adopt you!"

"Really?", Teddy teased. "Because it sounds as if I'd have to adopt you in 50 years, so you'd still be able to get to your money."

"No, that's all been arranged already.", Harry said gruffly. "All of my children will get a trust on their 25th birthday. You too. It's about 75,000 galleons each." He hugged his legs. "I really have to get away from her – here, whatever."

"Harry?"

"Yes?"

"What _does_ make you immortal? Was it your mother's sacrifice? Or can't you die twice?"

Harry looked at Teddy for a while. Then, obviously climbing several inner walls, he asked: "Do you know the tale of Death and the three brothers?"

When Teddy nodded, he continued. "The brothers were said to be the three Peverells – Ignotus, Cadmus and what's-his-face. Ignotus, the youngest, passed his gift, the cloak, down his family line", he removed the cloak from his breast-pocket, "down to me. The stone", he took out the familiar ring, "was framed and passed down to the Gaunt family. It was a soul-jar of Voldemort and I had to destroy it. The wand – the famous Death-stick", he laid his wand next to the two other priceless treasures, "was won from Grindelwald by Dumbledore, from him by Draco Malfoy, and I disarmed him."

"You are the Master of Death!", his de-facto son exclaimed.

Harry grimaced. "Unfortunately."

"Why don't you just destroy the Hallows?" Teddy wondered if his godfather's face could be stuck that way.

"They cannot be destroyed. In a way, they are tied to this place the same way I am. We think."

"Not at all? So if you drop them into Mount Doom, 10.000 years later, they'd be on earth again?"

"Yes. Indubitable. Of course, I could summon them in the meantime."

Teddy stared at his godfather incredulously. "I'd say that's cool, but it's really not, is it? Can they be won from you?"

"Hermione says we are a unit. And we will still be a unit, when someone steals a part of us."

"That's scary. Stop talking like that."

Harry gave a crooked grin. "I'll guess, it's only me that has to get used to the scary stuff, huh?"

"Yeah.", Teddy scoffed. "And your adoptee."

Harry gave a very small smile.

But at least it was there.

* * *

**Author Note:** (1) the Ginny-bashing ran away with me. Sorry. I don't like it if other writers do that, and then I'm doing it myself (2) I did a split infinitive. would like to know if it's obvious. Whoever finds it, and reports it, gets it changed. Or a cookie (3) Arthur Ransome is a British author and collected Russian fairy-tales, like 'The Soldier and Death' (4) Jelina, the All-Wise is a fairy-tale; I think of Estonia? (5) the Rite of AshkEnte is a Discworldian summoning of Death (or the people fulfilling Death's orders). Do it backwards... well, shit happens. (6) The portrait Teddy mentions is "The Picture of Dorian Gray", Iðunn's apple made the norse gods immortal (7) The Death-Eater Redemption is a competition by... Ralinde. I'm not writing an one-shot though, so I took the idea and ran with it (8) I wanted to categorise it as humour - anyone with me? It's a bit dark, granted.

.

May I just add a rant how riddiculous the genre classification is? This story is Adventure and Supernatural, because come on? Searching for Death - I could not use anything else.

But - they are wizards and witches (Supernatural), trying to meet Death (Spiritual), and sometimes the tragic is almost commical, there's this great mystery how... yeah, there is Harry angsting about being immortal, drama between the characters, there is fantasy (what part of wizard have you forgotten?), there is friendship, sometimes a little horror behind the scenes - it has hurt and comfort, and there will be tragedies, sometimes.

How on earth do I categorise that?

**Edit (July 6): **This is now beta-ed.


	2. Leaving Home

**Author's Note:** So. I said I took the idea from the Death-Eater-Redemption challenge; but actually, there isn't any redemption going on. (Personally, I find redemption boring - it can be written well, but meeh... nothing for me. If people don't think of the consequences of their choices, they're idiots (that doesn't make me less of one if I do stupid mistakes too.) But I digress

**Warning: **Death. Still the same as before. Allusions to people above the age of thirty having sexual relations (If you search long enough.) Parenthesis. Sometimes characters lie. Some harmless blood-shedding.

**Beta:** (Awesome) **Mrs. Bates93 - **It's her fault if Bellatrix sounds underdeveloped (it's mine, really.) She encouraged me.

* * *

**_._**

**_Cheating Death_**

**_._**

* * *

_II. Leaving Home_

* * *

o0O0o

Mors certa, antiquatis incerta.

(loosely based on a Latin proverb)

o0O0o

Bellatrix, who had chosen her husband out of the few suitors because the name suited her best, had taken to measuring the passage of time by the many wrinkles on her hands.

It was a surprisingly depressive method, but the only reliable one, too. She knew she wasn't getting any younger. The world had changed outside; it must have, because she had only three years of the outside world to add to her 30 years beforehand.

Technically she should be 33. That would be fair.

At some point during the endless imprisonment in the blank cells, chained like a feral beast and humiliated, degraded, contaminated, befouled; she had become an old woman.

When the healer came (what a joke! Healing her, so her life would be extended, so that she could spend more time in her cell. The cell she was prohibited to leave, the cell where she had lost her mind, her body, her children, her face, her everything) and told her she was nearing her 53th birthday, she had laughed in his face. That was barely middle-age. If that was true, she would still be able to bear... puppies. Something about puppies.

Her body was as cold and wet as her mind was. Her room, too. Some time ago, the cold and wet was to be dreaded. Now, the room with the healer in it was – bright, warm, dry, soft, and somewhat muted – seemed to unnerve her. Terrifying, to get used to it, and then to have it taken away again.

He told her of a thing called gannet convention (perhaps similar to a mugwump? Who knew what they called their offices after the war.) Apparently, they were trying to get the prisoners back to the outside world –that was also funny; maybe they would throw in a subscription to the paper too?

When she cackled, for no reason, the healer looked faintly disturbed and prescribed her alone time with a men's-wizard. Before, alone time with anyone else besides her husband, would have terrified her, but that was before they tried using her children to make her a slave. Before the dark Lord punished them, and her, for being useless. Before it all fell apart at the hands of _that_ boy.

She measured the passage of time by the wrinkles on her hands, and the growth of her hair. The dirt had for a long time clung to her body, her cot, the cell, so fully, that time could not be measured –sometimes she remembered her period, other times she didn't – and sometimes she did not have any long fingernails left to scratch a line into the wall because she had bitten them all.

Had she been a muggle, she would have gone insane after a month. So, she wasn't really sure – perhaps she sometimes lost time, had black-outs, and sometimes she could not remember events that had happened.

When one fine day Harry Potter visited her cell, looking exactly like he did when she had last seen him, she thought that she must surely be hallucinating. Or maybe the guards had an even darker humour than her own.

"Hello Bellatrix," the visitor said. "I have come to collect you."

Perhaps Death just loved irony.

o0O0o

When she came to again, the visitor was still there, still looking like Potter, and she was still in her mangy cell.

"Who are you? What do you want from me? Why do you look like Potter? Why have I got visitors? Am I hallucinating?" – she wanted to ask those questions, but her vocal chords got rusty with use, words did not form – what came out of her throat was a terrified croak.

"They are releasing the prisoners of war," her hallucination told her. "The British are finally catching up with most of continental Europe – your sisters helped greatly with your upcoming release."

Free? She would be freed? This was not mockery – this was torture.

They could not, they would not – they would. (Had she thought that they would end their torture on the mental side with the destruction of the Dementors? Who was she fooling? They had kept up a steady stream of humiliation and mental torture; but this, this, this was just plain evil!)

"Can you stand up?"

She gave no sign of having heard the question.

Her opposite sighed. "Stand up," he ordered. "Please."

To refuse direct orders, meant pain. So she did not. She stood. Her chains rattled, the cuffs on her feet slid down and chafed the wet scab – when blood escaped, she tried not to wince.

The being looking like Harry Potter did.

"I was told a healer would look you over," his voice sounded disdainful.

She would have licked her chapped lips, if her mouth was not as parched as it was at that moment – the lip licking would not have helped matters right now.

"What was that?"

Internally she seethed. She was _trying_, dammit! "He did."

"Oh." The person looked apprehensive. "I suppose, you have also been given water to drink and to wash and food to eat."

She nodded. He began to understand.

"Can you walk?" he asked. "We'll have to, for about 3 miles then we'll be by the boats. If you cannot, we will stay here until you are better."

Would he really be freeing her? The Harry Potter look - alike? Why had he not helped Master, instead of her? And now, now that she was not even beautiful any more. She would trust him, for now. Had to, really. She nodded.

He looked her over sceptically, then shrugged, and held his hand out to her.

o0O0o

When Bellatrix took his hand, and then clung to it like a drowning child to a life buoy; Harry felt even more miserable than seeing the cells. It had nothing to do with logic, since this was his godfather's murderer, Tonks' murderer, the woman who had tortured the Longbottom's to insanity – but the cells were not fit for grindylows, let alone human beings.

"I need you to swear an oath," he told her, while crossing over the quay wall to the boat that would take them to the mainland. "You will be released, but under the dubious care of your husband's brother." Harry probably was not very fair to the woman who had spent the last twenty years in a twenty square metre cell, but right at this moment? He could not care less – the dementors were long gone, but that did not make the atmosphere, the climate, the water any less inviting.

"Who?" the woman asked with one word.

"Harry Potter, of course." he did not understand why she would ask that asinine question. Surely she had not forgotten how he looked?

She stumbled, and brought him to a halt. "What?" – this being the first word she could say very clearly (It might have been, because it was so quick, it almost seemed forced.) "That's not possible."

"You could swear the oath to your rescuer, you know – the name comes out almost like... _magic_." Harry was not finished with his sentence, when the fury in her eyes brought him back to days long past, when his godfather was murdered, when Hogwarts _burned_, when Tonks, Lupin, Fred, Dobby, Colin, Lavender, Pansy, the elder Lestrange, Avery and all the others, died, and would never come back.

Was this really a good idea? He did need a companion, and he would not take anyone with better prospects, and Bellatrix was the easiest, belonging to a family of which he was the head. (Or was it the power of stories that made him long for a companion? Would this story fulfil another prophecy? Would he die at the end?)

"I swear on my magic, I was born Harry James Potter on the 31st July 1980."

He flicked his wand and Prongs emerged – the patronus looking around the gloomy place like tasting lemons and then nudging both of them softly towards the boat.

She looked shell-shocked, and he could not blame her – if it had been him, he would look for the catch at the very least, and think that he was dreaming (and who said she did not think exactly that? Maybe mad women did not think rationally; but then again, who did?)

"You did not find the Fountain of Eternal Youth did you?" she asked a long while after – the ocean breeze and fog probably helping her throat more than an elaborate potion would. She did not look him in the eyes, but scrutinised her hands instead.

"No," he said shortly. "And I can't do the same to you. I would give my immortality to you, if I could." He stopped to think about a world where Bellatrix Lestrange was immortal, and shuddered. "Maybe not."

She swallowed. "You said something 'bout release. Are you taking justice into your own hands?"

"No," he answered again. "You're the last prisoner – the most infamous, too – they were scared to release you. Apparently they feared retribution."

Dark clouds approached the coastline. Thunder rolled ominously. Light flashed at random intervals. "They'd better," Bellatrix said viciously.

Harry was sure, it was better to leave it at that.

o0O0o

They would cast out the insanity, the madness, and the deteriorated brain-cells with a three month long therapy session paid by the money in the former Black vault. Bellatrix Lestrange was found to possess more mental disorders than the March hare, and treating one seemed to bring out – not unlike battling a hydra – nine others. She would – of all bizarre reasons! – work as his secretary and coordinate the security detail he had to keep around his house, while he slowly eased his children into the facts that soon he would leave on another quest, and it would probably take a while until they spoke again, beside the weekly call on the looking-glass.

When Lily met her the first time, she was coming over waving the newly arrived most important correspondence a pre-teen could possibly get: the letter from Hogwarts.

"Daddy! Daddy! Look what I've got!" she hollered, running through the kitchen floo in Grimmauld Place, drawing a line of soot behind her, which Kreacher would almost expire over. "You'll never guess!" Face first, she ran into the mad-looking pre-coffee witch, and looked at her in horror. "Are you the death eater who killed Teddy's mum?"

"Lilly!" Hermione who had followed her, scolded, looking apologetic, and seeing as the statement was true and correct in every aspect nothing much more could be said.

Apparently living in the household of the Boy-Who-Lived meant you were exempt from all crimes that you committed. Given that the Chosen One himself had broken several laws including, but not limited to: the Statute of Secrecy, the Peace Treaty of 1854, 1876, 1912 and 1956 with the goblin nation, the non-influence disclosure treaty, the state building act, the usage of the Unforgivables, and all the other now classified acts; that was understandable, it was wartime and _inter arma enim silent leges._

But, even medicated, her mind was wide open for intrusions; holes, psychoses and phobia repaired or repressed, Bellatrix, the warrior queen, was a force to be reckoned with.

o0O0o

"Let me get this straight – I believe I may have heard wrong – you are retiring from the forces, because you're writing your _memoirs_?" Kingsley, head of the Auror forces for about 15 years, and head of the Dragons for about 7 – was above raising his voice. Nevertheless, he could make one feel like a bug to be squashed under his foot, like a pixie looking up to a giant, like every wizard talking to Merlin. "You, Harry Potter, are writing your memoirs?"

"Yes, sir," Harry answered.

"I don't suppose quitting because of personal reason has the same finality?" Kingsley said with a sarcastic undertone.

"Yes, sir," Harry answered the rhetorical question.

"You have petitioned for a secretary to help you with your fan mail, after 20 years of dealing with it yourself, and now you are going to quit?"

"Yes, sir."

"And if I look hard enough, will I find you on International Criminal Databases?"

"Yes, sir," Harry answered, before processing what was said, and stuttering, "Of course not, sir!"

Kingsley shook his head. "Harry, I have known you for a long time. I may seem oblivious to a lot, but I am first and foremost an officer – I notice things. Like your wife. Like certain trips to Gringotts that take hours. Like one of my officers applying glamours to himself. I also know that you are a good man. But Bellatrix? Really?" He looked at Harry. Then he sighed. "Well. I accept your resignation. May I add that if and when you have sorted yourself out –let's just call it your midlife crisis – you have a standing invitation to come back."

Harry shifted uncomfortably. "Thanks. I appreciate... your concern. I'll keep it in mind."

And he left the office, the floor, the building, without once looking back.

Kingsley knew he was not coming back. But one could always hope.

o0O0o

Bellatrix quietly inserted herself into his life. In fact, it was done so quietly, Harry did not notice until after the fact.

In the beginning, he had heard her arguing loudly with Kreacher (and his son – a relatively new development. One day, Kreacher turned up on the door-step and introduced Kreaper, his son. Allegedly, the Black family needed a house-elf, and until their last descendants were buried under centuries of myth, this house-elf family would serve them. Harry had tried to send them away. Harry had given them clothes. Harry had tried to set Hermione on them – but they had stayed.)

Then, Hermione had showed up, every day, to take a look at his research, and talk about avenues he had perhaps overlooked.

"But you have died and come back, _before_ you got one of the Hallows," she said one day, straight out of the floo.

"Have I?" Harry asked, and made her a cup of tea. "But we only have Dumbledore's word for that. And we know he was a bit manipulative."

She had matured, they all had, and it showed in her reply. Instead of "But it's Dumbledore!" it was, "How would lying have benefited him?"

"It would have shown him to be far closer to my parents than he was."

Another time, it was: "So the connection between Voldemort and you – maybe it was far less than we assumed."

"Must you call it a connection?" Harry whined.

"You could have come back due to the Hallow," she continued, ignoring him completely. Why she was telling him this, was anyone's guess, she was probably using him as a sounding board. "Because you owned the Invisibility Cloak, not because of your mum's sacrifice – which was always a point that stupefied: Had there never been a mother to sacrifice her own life for her child? And the second time, you had the ring. You could not die – but the horcrux could. And then the Elder Wand was yours along."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it's not relevant to _the fact that I _don't _age at _all."

Cue sighing, "Oh, Harry." and a tea service appearing next to him, although Harry had sent both Kreacher and Kreaper on their much deserved holiday.

Finally, there was the time Hermione came by with a folder the size of Mount Doom. (Well, not really. Rather, it was as big and wide so as to hide Hermione completely from view.)

"What's that?" he asked, mystified why Hermione would drag that _monster_ to him. "Laws concerning Immortality?"

"No." she sent him a withering look, "Precedence cases." She slammed the folder on his kitchen table and opened it. Pieces of paper, parchment and post-it notes popped out – opened, the folder defied gravity. "I have been researching."

"That, I can see." Harry's lip curled up with amusement. "Have you been sleeping?"

The withering look does not vanish. "I have been collecting legends. Mostly European, because – I had a feeling. The magic in Asia has evolved differently. Well... I'm saying that, but I just could not find enough substance. Did you know that, for example, the Japanese shinigami – "death spirits" – were imported from Europe? They sometimes have death and immortality, but not in our sense: They reincarnate.

"Now, there is this really insane muggle scientist, called Aubrey de Grey, who thinks people could theoretically live forever. He looks a bit like Dumbledore, and sometimes he sounds like him, too; but in a world where nargles and humperdingers exist, his theories are sound.

"In correspondence – there are of course the Egyptian Gods –who regenerate from the point of one single cell. Bill has these whole stacks of magical theories nobody today can understand, but they all point towards the thesis, that there were, in fact, magical beings that were able to live a long, long time."

She drew in a breath. "It's different with the Hallows."

"Yes," Bellatrix Lestrange confirmed, causing Hermione to jump maybe a foot into the air and making the stacks of papers go all over.

Hermione gave Harry a betrayed look, but Harry just shrugged his shoulders. He had not told his house guest where his youthfulness came from. Seeing as coming out of the shadows like a ghost was her normal thing and Hermione should get used to it already, he was not really sure what her problem was.

"Legend has it, the three Peverell brothers made the objects themselves. How could anyone make an object that produces eternal youth? There is only the Philosopher's Stone," she continued, disregarding the silent communication between the two friends.

"Let's not call it eternal youth," Hermione added. "So far, it only extends 20 years."

Before an argument broke out, Kreacher appeared next to Harry. "Masters be needing something?" he asked.

Harry was about to dismiss him, when a flash of inspiration hit him. "Kreacher, have you ever heard any tales of eternal youth?"

The decrepit old elf grimaced. "There is tales of the Great Ones – saying they never went old. But they vanish, vanish, before Old City go into the water, long before great wizard Merlin is born. I is sorry."

"My grandmother told us the story with the river Styx – they tried crossing over for a lark; but I know the Rosiers used Kǫrmt– the river Thor has to cross to arrive at judgement. The point, however, is that the brothers _disrupted _the natural order of the universe. They did not _die _while crossing over. Therefore, they were presented with gifts to _punish_ them. The gods – beings with greater power – have never cared for lesser beings. They would not have cared if Voldemort destroyed England – a lot of people have tried before. They only cared that some ancestor of yours was disruptive. Therefore, they are punishing you," Bellatrix said.

Hermione listened with a thoughtful look.

Harry shook his head. "I don't think speculation is going to be helpful. It maybe this way, it may have another reason entirely. I am still going to leave England, and visit the places where someone might know how to make an immortal die – first to the Sibyl of Cumae by Naples, and then to Alexandria."

"It's your life," Hermione quipped, only to slap her hand over her mouth. "Oops. Sorry. Ron is rubbing off on me."

Harry swallowed. "Too much information," he stated.

o0O0o

Harry was packing trunks, when Ron showed up, bleeding on the carpet of the dining room.

He lost no time in scolding his best friend (that was left for the wife, later) and produced a first-aid kit. He instilled a blood-replenishing potion and disinfection into his best friend, and closed the wound with no undervalued healing prowess.

"It was fine, when I left work," Ron grimaced. "Must have reopened on the way here."

Harry nodded. One time, he had laid on his kitchen floor in his own vomit, until Kreacher had transported him into bed and called a healer.

"Wonder who'll patch me up, when you're gone."

"Ron..."

"I get it," he answered shortly. "I do. I'm not completely governed by my emotions. It's just..." He looked with blood-shot eyes into Harry's. "You probably won't come back."

"I have two-way mirrors," Harry reminded him.

"Not the same," Ron said. "Won't be able to patch me up, won't be coming for a beer after work, and won't be... yeah. Hermione says, I sound love-sick. I probably am."

Harry looked at him askew.

"Eww. Not that way. But. You know," he sighed. "The first adventure without me."

"Ron, are you drunk?"

"Mate. Do you think I could have this conversation sober?"

Harry agreed silently, put away the tools, and grabbed some beers.

"You know. I was ready to die, when I was seventeen," Harry confessed.

Ron sighed. He knew in his heart what was coming, but did not want to acknowledge it.

"Now it's twenty years later." "_And I am still ready to die."_, was what he didn't say.

Bellatrix found them passed out against each other three hours later.

o0O0o

The summer before Lily went to Hogwarts passed almost within a blink an eye. Soon, they were standing again on platform 9 ¾ at King's Cross, waving and crying, and seeing people they knew from school, work or Diagon Alley.

Lily did not want to let go. James was running around shouting, as always. Teddy was standing next to Victoire – cool as rain, his hands in his pockets, because his beloved was staying with him. Albus, Rose and Scorpius were huddled together talking about snakes. Percy was seeing off Lucy and Molly, Roxanne was trying to evade her shouting mother – she was wearing a belly top and ripped jeans.

Ginny was clinging to Harry, same as Lily, crying like a waterfall. "I'm sorry, Harry," she repeated like a litany. "But... I'll forgive you, I'm sorry. Harry, I am so sorry." He could only hold her, and tell her everything would turn out fine, but he was lying, he was going to leave with the Continental Express to Germany – Apparition was limited across running waters. Also, it was very exhausting.

"I will call," he said, hugging Lilly one more time.

Then, the Hogwarts Express left.

He extracted himself from Ginny's clutches, kissed her goodbye, hugged his friends...

And was gone.

* * *

**Author's Note:** 1) "Mors certa, hora incerta." - Death is certain, the hour is not. (My version is old age...) 2) The laws Harry may or may not have been broken are mostly invented. There are two different ways law can be regarded: As something you can enforce before court, or the natural law of who was in the right. That doesn't matter, however, if it's wartime - In War, the laws are silent (The most famous of the ancient Roman laws, most notably cited by Cicero). 3) Aurors and Dragons are the police and the military force respectively. In state theory, both of them must exist, before a state can be called a state. 4) I just noticed: This chapter has a lot of prententious Latin, and a lot of prententious law shit. Sorry. 5) Mount Doom is still from LotR - If you still haven't read it, you are hereby a philistine. (coincidentally this term originates from the Book of Judges... I am doing it again, ain't I?) 6) Everything Hermione says about her research is correct. Audrey de Grey is, in fact, a legitimate scientist (well mostly). He is 49, and looks like a cross between Dumbledore and Mel Gibson's Jesus. 7) Styx ad Kormt (Greek and Celtic) are rivers dividing the living world from the dead. 8) The Sibyl of Cumae is one of the great prophets of Ancient Europe. And that's all I'm saying about her for now. 9) I have limited Apparition. Why? Because I said so. Also, it would be boring, if someone had instant transportation depending on his magical strength. This is exactly why they invented mana points.

Gosh. This is a long author note. And such a short chapter, too. Does anyone read this things? Thanks again, MrsBates! I feel I annoy you too much...


	3. Of Threes and Prophecies

**Author Note:** Yay, chapter 3 is done - blame me on all brick jokes, all other languages (translations are at the bottom - they are more setting, though.)

**Warnings: **All characters are still alive, and will be for quite awhile. Pretentious references. Italian. Ancient Greek.

**Beta**-ed by the wondrous and wonderful **Mrs**. **Bates93**! Have I said - she's wonderful!

* * *

_**.**_

_**Cheating Death**_

_**.**_

* * *

_III. Of Threes and Prophecies_

* * *

o0O0o

"Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?"

Book of Zechariah, l. 5

o0O0o

Back when magic was common practise and known to all, the Sibyl of Cumae was most revered. She was by no means the only Sibyl – a name transferred from other great prophetesses and seers – but the only one still active when the Romans conquered Naples. I say conquered, but what actually happened, was more of an integration of the old Greek cities: Cumae (the first city), Partenope or Palaeopolis ("Old city") and Neapolis,the new city. The majority of the citizens were still descended from Greeks, and they mostly spoke the Ancient Greek language.

But political difference mattered little to the holy ground, where there was much among the cities. Two of them were of special importance to our heroes: the entrance to the Roman Orcus, the underworld. One was nearly next to the Antro della Sibilla, the cave of the seer, the other one was to be found at the Campi Flegrei.

However, currently our heroes are crossing the Alps in one of the many magical trains of Europe ("Full comfort for the magical ride of your life: Over, sideways and under! Wonder by wonder!") – The Cross-Continental Express was to the Hogwarts Express what a five-star hotel was to a youth hostel.

(Harry had long suspected the British ministry of taking the funds for public transportation and using them to fund racing broom companies. In fact, there was this one article in '_The_ _Quibbler_'...)

o0O0o

"Watch your money, please!" Bellatrix shouted over the crowd who were either trying to exit, enter, or obstruct the train.

Harry grumbled. He had nearly lost his fingers to the evil pouch; that Hagrid had gifted him some twenty years ago, trying to take some money out. Give it to his evil, mad secretary to doubt his ability to keep the money safe still. (Why again had he decided to take more than 7.000 galleons in cash? Oh, yes: Unforeseen Circumstances, the dread of every traveller.) "I'm watching it!" he replied.

Exiting Napoli Centrale– the central train station – on Piazza Garribaldi, they searched for the nearest way underground. Naples, famous for its cultural and historical sights, the Camorra and pizza, was most familiar to the magical community, because of its intricate web of buildings and tunnels underground. The web extended from the volcano over to Pompeii, Herculaneum, to the coast by Baia, mainly consisting of aqueducts, old quarrying caverns, catacombs, natural caverns and some interconnecting tunnels.

(One such entrance to the underground, ironically, was named after Severus of Naples – the catacombs of Saint Severus**.**)

Climbing down the narrow rock-hewn staircase proved a little difficult, since handling both the luggage (already feather-weight charmed and size-reduced) and conducting the _Lumos_ light proved more than Harry could handle.  
After the trunk had nearly collided with an unsuspecting visitor, only rescued due to Bellatrix's quick "_Locomotor_!" his annoyed companion had shrunken the trunk and pocketed it.

Embarrassed, Harry left her to manage his stuff.

2641 steps further down**;** they were standing in front of the entrance of "Urbe della Magia". A little shrivelled man was guarding the grandiose doors of carved stone: white marble framing the black, depicting scenes from Naples varied history, jewels colouring the most famous.

"How do we get inside?" Harry whispered to his companion. The environment demanded reverential silence.

He was met with an arched eyebrow and so softly spoken words "You'll see." he might as well have imagined them.

When they tip-toed closer, the human dwarf looked up with narrowed eyes and observed them coldly. Silently, he signed to them to come even closer, until they were but a breath away from the man's mouth.

"What**,**" he asked them, "is your quest?"

.

.

"Seriously? You have never heard of Monty Python and the Holy Grail? It's the greatest film ever! Well, except for Life of Brian. Or maybe Forrest Gump**.**"

"I haven't**,**" Bellatrix replied sourly, still a little put out by the scene with the door guard. "And I doubt that I will hold it in the same esteem that you seem to do."

o0O0o

"I swear, I will maim you slowly and painfully if you say 'Just around the corner!' one more time!" Bellatrix muttered, her hair-bun loose and untidy, her eyes slightly crazed.

"Only a few more steps**,**" Harry cheerfully replied, turning his map of the underground labyrinth around – again. Equally cheerfully he ignored the threat of the former death-eater, knowing full well it was void – a stipulation of the work-release was swearing an unbreakable oath of never intentionally killing a person. "We should actually..." He frowned at the map. "Whoops. Turn around again." He squinted. "The light here is really bad for my eyes**,**" he complained.

"For heaven's sake!" his companion exclaimed. "Give the blasted map to me!"

Wrestling ensued. Before the precious map could be torn apart, Harry relented though, and let the woman look.

"This is all written in Ancient Greek!"

Harry snickered. "You think? I keep getting _lab_ and _bal_ confused, and can you believe that _pod_ and _trapeza_ have the same root?"

"How do you know Ancient Greek? You don't even know Latin!"

He shrugged. "Picked it up somewhere. Will you let me navigate now?"

Without her whining, it took Harry two more minutes to find the sanctuary of the ancient prophetess.

Inside the cave, it was wet and cold. The smell of sulphur, or more specifically, sulphur oxide, permeated the air. The normally yellow to orange light of the _Lumos_ spell turned green.

"Ohh**,**" Harry exhaled. "Spooky."

Bellatrix murmured something, causing the light ball to integrate into the walls, still looking very green.

"Now that's overdoing it**,**" he criticised, making Bellatrix roll her eyes.

Walking further down the cave, they encountered a wall – a sign "Attenzione! Babbani e Touristi! Si prega de tenere la magia al minimo!" was attached beneath an arrow pointing through the wall.

"See**,**" he pointed to it. "That was a waste of magical energy anyway."

On the other side of the wall, there were a few people scattered around looking at walls and a few plaques – but the most attention-grabbing feature was the all-encompassing, deep silence that crept into all loops and gaps.

Ignored by all visitors was a translucent sphere of maybe a square foot base.

"Is that–"Bellatrix whispered reverential.

"Probably**,**" Harry replied normally, but it echoed very loud in the cave. He approached the cone carefully. "Now. Any idea what language she speaks?"

A faint, very faint laughter reverberated through the cave. "Trust the Englishmen**,**" _someone_ said, "to come to my home without knowing which language to speak."

Harry looked at Bellatrix. Was that really the most famed Sibyl? This was most definitely English.

"At least, they aren't as conceited as the Italians, who assume I have to speak their language. After all, what other language is there?"

"Erm," Harry demurred. "Actually..."

"Yes. I do know why you are here. If what you are thinking is correct, you have all the time in the world. So why not entertain a fellow immortal? Since I was not able to leave this cave since millennia, whereas you are as free as a bird to go wherever you want, you are eternally young, whereas I am no longer a body; I am a voice, lecturing those that are alive in the truest of forms.

"I want, Mr Potter. I want, I pine, I crave, and I yearn. I don't need. I never need. I am eternally needless. But oh, how I want."

"Yes**,**" Harry answered. "But how does that pertain to me?"

"The selfish youth of all times**,**" the voice sighed. "Impatient. You will wait. My speeches take time, a commodity you have in abundance. Your companion does not, but she has slept long – there will be a reckoning. Very well. Ask your questions. I will allow you three questions, three, because it is your magical number."

"What is a magical number?" Harry asked without thinking, followed by Bellatrix elbowing him in his side. "Ouch!"

"What your companion is trying to tell you; is that you are asking the wrong question to get the answer you seek," the voice replied, audibly amused. "But I will answer you: your life has been unequivocal influenced by Three, meaning it becomes your magical number. You have been birthed by those who have thrice defied a dark Lord, you were the third to be killed on Halloween of 1981, you are a parseltongue, and the ancient symbolism of the Runespoor snake is the Three, three disturbed confrontations between you and the dark Lord, three friends– three Hallows, three wands you can use very well, three kids, the list goes on."

"How do you know all of this?" Harry asked, only to flinch a few seconds later, because now he had asked two questions, only being allowed three. He had not even begun to ask questions on the topic he had come for.

"To know the past is to know the future, because the present is followed by the future and has been the past for a few seconds."

"This is useless**,**" Bellatrix snarled and turned around. "I don't know why you thought asking a seer for information, was a good idea! The only thing they're useful for is being a host for parasites!"

"Now, now, young lady, there is no need to spew such venom. You have much to learn."

Harry Potter watched the two females bickering, reminisced of home and the females bickering there; and then had a rare moment of utter clarity. He knew what to ask and why he had come here. "Is my..." he interrupted their argument, "...life, is it destiny?"

"Maybe we each have a destiny, or we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but maybe it's both," the sibyl quoted. "What I know is that you are still living under a prophecy. Also, the people in power don't like anyone breaking the Rules. It was a toss-up between you and Dumbledore, this Hallow thing. Why couldn't you just put your trust into your worthiness? There had been a prophecy about you. In every instance you and the dark Lord would annihilate each other. The general world wouldn't have cared."

"But then, you had to master all of the Hallows. The three Hallows. And the symbolism of the three took over. You were born under a prophecy. And that prophecy could have been fulfilled two times already: first, when you were barely one year old; the second time, during the Battle of Hogwarts. But your life was under the sword of Damocles – the blasted Three. Three times the charm, so the last verse, the stupid verse, the most vague verse, may not have been fulfilled before the battle."

The voice paused. "Where was I? Oh yes, neither can live, while the other survives. This is the tricky bit. What I guess it means now, is that for you to be able to die, Voldemort must be alive. Or maybe it means something completely different, because someone forgot to relay the pause. Maybe the first part of the prophecy is one strophe, whereas that line, completely disregarding the tone of the first strophe, is another prophecy, regarding that child, i.e. you. I like that.**"**

"That's destiny. But there was Death in your story, just like Apollo in mine. When I made a deal with him, he betrayed me, just like I betrayed him. But he was more powerful, so I was punished most severely."

"I haven't done anything to Death, that's worth punishing me for!" Harry exclaimed, and was quickly shushed.

"For a man who calls himself Death? You have resisted Death two times before the Hallows**,**" the prophetess replied.

"And countless times after! If third time's the charm, why haven't I died**?**" Harry argued.

"That's the punishment. You have the Hallows, therefore you are the Master of Death, and therefore you cannot die. To un-master the Hallows is to die."

"So how do I un-master the Hallows?"

"There is nothing in the past that could help you, Boy-Who-Lives. There was nothing in the present that could aid you, Master of Death. Pray that there will be something in the future to assist you, Harry James Potter."

There was something sacred in the words, something to trust. At the same time, it made him wonder – made him think of things in life he would sorely miss. He could swear there was an ethereal figure of a pleasing shape. A woman, maybe in her twenties.

"Always look on the bright side**,**" she whispered and whistled. Then, she vanished.

.

.

Bellatrix saw the outline, too. The woman was very beautiful, but not in the conventional way. She had character, life experience. "There are always two sides of a coin," she said, and it felt like someone was stroking her hair. "Somebody cursed you. You may live in interesting times, and you will find what you are looking for. Take all the time in the world, for in the end, it will come true."

Then, both the white sphere and the woman inside it vanished. She looked over to her employer, her travel companion, her rescuer. Interesting times.

Well. Who would have thought?

She shivered. Maybe one got used to good things faster than to bad.  
Hell might be other people, but heaven probably was, too.

"Let's go," her boss said quietly, when the oppressing silence vanished, too. "We'll catch some cold or another, if we stay down here any longer."

"I fear the sulphur has already clogged my brain permanently**,**" Bellatrix replied.

"Perhaps it's the sulphur giving the prophecy, not some stupid higher power**,**" he grumbled. "It was pretty nebulous, too."

Bellatrix's "Mmh." was very non-committal.

"What do you say to public transportation?" Harry proposed after the little walk outside, very cheerfully. "I am so sick of caves!"

o0O0o

Half an hour later, found them in another cave. It smelt only slightly of sulphur, was reasonably dry and not very cold, but was still very much a cave.

"For Merlin's sake! Can't there please be some magical place on the surface of this city?" Harry exploded, nearing his Uncle's condition of calmness.

Bellatrix calmly sipped her drink and polished her finger nails. She was watching the local clients very inobstructively. There were the obvious tourists, sure, but there also was what looked like a nymph, and what was that man with the grass-green overcoat (tailored, possibly rich) smoking?

A few teenagers were watching each other playing "magic sticks"– juggling with wands.

"Scusi**,**"a woman from the next table bent forward to speak with Harry and showed him her very developed cleavage. Very big earrings dangled next to her painted mouth – she had sunglasses keeping her curls back. "I could not help but overhear**,**" she spoke with a very faint accent. "The sister of my boyfriend's friend, her parents have opened a new inn in the magical part of the Orto Botanica di Napoli– it belongs to the University and the French, you see – most of the magical folk around here stay underground. Sulphurous air is supposed to heal migraines, and infertility, impotence, cancer, pestilence, the common cold, influenza, bronchitis, homosexuality, heterosexuality, dry skin, oily skin, oily hair, big noses, small noses, big feet, small feet – you get the idea. Anyway, they're still depending on word of mouth advertising; and that's what I'm doing, right! There are sweet little cottages, and Mamma is cooking, and if you're searching for a retreat on the surface, it's your place. You know, it's also about 200 metres away from the Plazza di Garibaldi, there's the National Archaeology Museum with the Secret Cabinet – the famous erotic art collection..."

"Yes, thank you**,**" Harry interrupted her excessive loquacity. "We'd be glad to go there. By any chance – how do we get there?"

"Oh, that's simple!" she stood up very suddenly, so that her cleavage almost popped into Potter's face, her jewellery clinking. "I'm heading there as well. Very good coffee. You and your mother?"

"Secretary**,**" Bellatrix inserted with a distasteful sneer.

"Yes, can follow us**,**" she finished. Then, she picked up her handbag and possible boyfriend with the word "Allora, andiamo!" and they were introduced to traffic in Italy for Dummies: the more you shout, and the brighter your smile the faster you will be, where you want to be.

o0O0o

It was September, the grass and trees were painted with the most delicious green, flowers were blooming, the vines carried ripe grapes, and Bellatrix was elegantly sipping the most delicious cup of cappuccino. It was warm outside and the sun was shining.

She leaned back on the sun-bed and relaxed, listening to Potter's conversation with his daughter.

"–and then –Dad, are you listening?"

"Yes, dear**,**" he answered smiling.

"He told the door stopper: 'Why, there couldn't be someone more beautiful than you, could there?' – and the door stopper _blushed_! He blushed, daddy – then Marina, she's the female prefect told us about classes. You know, there is this really odd ghost, they call him Professor Binns, and he's giving lectures on goblin revolution on the second corridor, he's done that for centuries apparently, but they are so boring! Fred says, he goes there when he has trouble sleeping."

"Sounds like you are having fun, Lily."

"Of course I am! I'm in Hogwarts! Dad, Albus says hello, and asks to tell you that you are supposed to be eating. He has a friend, and his parents divorced, and then they stopped eating, and had to be sent to St. Mungo's because of food-poisoning. You are eating, aren't you?"

"Of course I am eating. How are Al and James?"

"Fine. Dad?"

"Yes, Lily."

"Why are you and mum divorced?"

"We aren't divorced yet, Lily. We are separated. It's because your mum thinks, I didn't grow up."

"Why does she think that?"

"Because I look just the same as I did when we married."

"That's stupid**,**" Lily said with all the conviction only eleven-year-olds can muster. "I wouldn't divorce my husband because of that."

"But your husband might. I find it's very tedious, if she constantly belittles me."

"Oh**,**" Lily said. "What does tedious mean? I don't like it when Al and James belittle me, too."

"Tedious means annoying, tiring..."

"Okay. It's now curfew."

"Well, then –goodnight, little Lily."

"I am not little!"

"Good night. Hugs and kisses."

"Hugs and kisses, daddy."

He looked up, and Bellatrix could see all the way from her resting place how pained his eyes looked, and how tense his back was.

"You wouldn't be able to see her even if you were home**,**" she said.

"Yes**,**" he choked out.

"There's nothing you can do about her growing up**,**" she clarified.

"Yes**,**" this wasn't less painful.

"But you want to anyway."

"No**,**" he said and shook his head. "Yes. Well – she could die. She is going to die, and I..."

"You are a whining whiner. You are utterly ungrateful**,**" Bellatrix interrupted him. "You will never be able to influence a person's death, unless you are killing him or her yourself." She did stop herself from screaming at the boy, but only barely. "I didn't get what that blasted seer was on about in the cave, but now I do – I didn't recognise it at first, because it's inversed, but you have hubris as great as the dark Lord had!"

"What? I do not!"

"What else do you want to call this senseless self-pitying spree you are on? You don't know when you are going to die. Well, message to you: nobody does! So normally people die, when a killing curse is shot at them – Muggles die in car crashes that would never kill a wizard, wizards on average live a couple of decades longer, they don't die of cancer, but eventually all things die! You won't be able to keep your daughter, your sons, or your friends indefinitely. Things change!"

"They don't**,**" her employer said angrily, and the only thought in her head was: "What did I do?" – "Shit. Always. Happens. To. Me."

"Boohoohoo**,**" apparently her mouth worked simply fine without the filter of her brain between. "So you joined the death-eaters to impress girls, and went to prison when you were on crack at thirty? Lost five unborn children by the age of fifty and fought on the side of a madman, a losing war, an unworthy cause, and went back to prison with your husband finally killed, and then have to work under the lone boy who caused you to go back to a hell-hole?" She punctured her argument with pokes into his breast bone. When she was particularly violent, sparks escaped.

"You are one lucky son of a witch!" this she really shouted. "You live, and live, and keep on living! And now, you are finding a way to stop that, fine, be my guest, but stop moping about the family you have left willingly, the friends you have left willingly, and the children you can talk to whenever they don't have classes!"

And with that, she left the blooming paradise, to help herself to some extremely potent grappa.

o0O0o

The next morning, when they both had woken up with hang-overs in the same bed, luckily with their clothes on, they agreed to never mention the evening again.

Also, they agreed that all prophetesses were frauds and drug addicts, and more information was better found at the sources, namely Egyptian rituals (the Egyptians – an advanced civilisation almost older than dirt – had invented most of the rituals, and were rather used to people going west and coming back**.**)

* * *

**Author's Note: **1) The Sibyl of Cumae (perhaps, maybe) really existed. Both Greek and Roman sources have mentioned her. It is said that she was so beautiful and wise Apollo wanted to be granted her virginity. She wanted a gift: Immortality. But she didn't ask for eternal youth, and when she tricked the god – well. Also she wrote five books of prophecies and made the last Roman emperor an offer. She burned two, and made the same offer again. When only one book was left (among others prophesying the birth of a messiah after Vergilius) he finally accepted it. 2) This chapter is set in Naples, Italy – Napoli in the national language. All the places within are very much real (although maybe not used by magical people) 3) Campi Flegrei means burning fields (Phlegraean Fields is the more common name), around Naples there are a lot of seismological and volcanic activity. Pretty much all of the fancier ones are called this. 4) I imagined my Cross-Continental Express a little bit like the Oriental Express in England. It's very fancy, you get to eat and there are lots of murder mysteries. 5) Naples is full of pick pockets, has a very big black market, and is a breeding place for little Mafiosi. 6) Camorra is the Neapolitan Mafia. In case you live under a rock. 7) "Urbe della Magia" - an old word for city of magic 8) the gratuitous references to Monty Python and Forrest Gump I couldn't resist. Blame my best friend. 9) Locomotor trunk is used in HP-OotP by Remus. 10) Harry started learning Ancient Greek together with Hermione while hunting horcruxes (she would so do that) lab and bal mean take and throw respectively, and pod (foot) and trapez (table) do have the same root. 11)"Attenzione! Babbani e Touristi! Si prega de tenere la magia al minimo!" - "Attention! Muggles and Tourists! Please keep magic to a minimum!" 12) "Scusi"- "Excuse me" 13) "Allora, andiamo!" - "Well, let's get going!" 14) Yes. I have personally met Italian women. Yes, I like them very much. They do tend to be very over-whelming =)

(Seriously - this has to stop! I hate long author notes!)


	4. Waterways

**Author Note:** Pirates! Where the heck did that come from? I don't know! They... (This is going to become so screwed up – I wonder why you're still reading it.)

**Beta: **Still the wonderful, wondrous Mrs. Bates93 – who called this chapter brilliant, by the way, and that's in no way self-promotion! (I still think the pirates were a bit too much. That's why I deleted them... Ridiculous.)

* * *

**_._**

**_Cheating Death_**

**_._**

* * *

_IV. Waterways_

* * *

o0O0o

_Thousands have lived without love, not one without water._

WH Auden: First Things First

o0O0o

There is a mystery within vast bodies of water.

Magic works differently with moving water – you can't Apparate directly over river and streams. You can't Apparate over the open sea. But like with all impossible things, it attracts people who find ways to cross the sea, to use the natural order for their protection, their livelihood, their home.

Meet the pirates of the Mediterranean.

Okay, calling them pirates would be a bit over the top – but historical, they were. Their civilisation, their way of life, their culture, it was all based on piracy.

(Back when Hannibal and Carthage fell, and the Carthaginian Empire with them, the water tribes went independent – later they were part of the Magical Empire of Rome, but when the succession crises started, they were let loose again.)

Now there are two main tribes of water nomads (depending on the circumstances, they are also known as wizards of the sea, Oceanites, or the Fleets), one still using the trireme of ancient Phoenicia, the other mostly using different ships of the medieval times. Dominantly were ships with three masts, bigger ships reducing the speed of the home fleet, and smaller ships mostly used for fishing and shore leave.

Travelling across the Mediterranean was so much easier, when you went with the local sea wizards – they knew the comings and goings of the tides, they knew how to keep your magic intact and whole, and in payment they demanded a little bit of your personal strength. Piracy had long given way to legitimate businesses – nobody liked the way the statute of secrecy was enforced.

That's why we find our heroes in one such water vessel (otherwise known as a boat – but more precisely it's a small flotilla of caravels). They were not the only passengers, but not many people took the rather dangerous route over the waters.

Here there was Scylla and Charybdis, Aspidochelone (a very large sea-turtle sometimes turning into a whale), the goat-fish, the Kraken, three or four leviathans, and the obligatory sirens – most of these creatures necessitated tight controls, so that Muggles wouldn't find out about them.

There were less dangerous routes to Egypt of course. The only faster way to travel was through the Gringott's door – the great golden door that was the single entrance for all branches of the goblin bank. Where the founder Gringott had discovered that the entrance was a long-held secret, and rumours said that it involved 17 virgins (That meant it wasn't true. Seventeen was not a very impressive magical number.) Even the most skilled port key-maker would have to build more than ten, to just cross the Balkan Sea. Taking a flying carpet from mainland Greece was the most common method of travelling to Africa. (There had been talk about building undersea travel chambers – like they did on the Seward Peninsula in Alaska and the most interesting corner of Russia (at least what applied to the magical population), but the continents of Africa and Europe moved too much against each other.

Anyway – travel time to Egypt took five days uninterrupted. A lot of time to acquaint yourselves to the strange ambiance of feeling your magic cut off by high waves, making you even more seasick than you already were. It gave you enough time to ask for the name of the person you had accidentally spilled your half-digested meal upon.

o0O0o

"I'm Arthur, nice to…well…" he trailed off, obviously realising that nice does not describe being puked over.

"Harry," Harry answered self-deprecatingly.

"First time on a boat can be a bit jarring, eh?" Arthur looked at Harry wistfully. It was weird, Harry thought, because the man had to be younger than him.

"Well, yeah." Harry shrugged. "First time out of the country, really." Arthur sounded American, but he dressed like Draco Malfoy – traditional cut robes, wooden buttons, and the shoes.

"Honestly?" the other man asked surprised. "And you brought your grandmother along?"

Harry could swear that he heard Bellatrix spluttering her cup of tea, as she sat one of the higher decks with the other passengers.

"She isn't my grandmother!" he protested, and then didn't know how he should describe their relationship, and decided on telling him, what he had told everyone. "She's my secretary." It came out uncertain, and Arthur didn't seem very convinced.

Harry rubbed his neck and stared helplessly at his supposed conversational partner, but he simply didn't know what to talk about. After standing awkwardly in front of each other, Harry went back to his "secretary". On further thought, it wasn't so unbelievable that the Arthur bloke had thought her to be his grandmother.

Bellatrix turned her head from the woman she was talking to (S-something Renoir, Harry remembered vaguely) "I cannot believe you were an Auror, if that's how you normally converse with suspicious contemporaries," she said.

"Suspicious?" Harry asked dumbfounded.

Bellatrix sighed. "Look at him," she told Harry – he did just that.

Arthur was standing by the railing, looking onto the dark blue water. He looked tense. "I don't see anything," Harry said.

Bellatrix made a noise that could have been exasperation as well as resignation. Maybe it was both. "First," she took an elegant sip of the tea. "His clothes can't hide a wand holster, they're too tight. So where does he carry his wand? Sleeve is out, he gestures too much, beneath his trousers is possible, unlikely – he can't get to it very fast. He's not careless – there's a small dagger in his belt. He stands near the water, he has been... look, and he's wet."

"How did you notice that?" Harry hissed at her quietly.

"Not everyone is clueless, you idiot," she rolled her eyes. "Seriously. You noticed it, too. Maybe not consciously, but you were making him nervous by looking towards his dagger. I thought you might be trying to intimidate him."

"Huh." Harry looked puzzled. "I knew something was making me nervous."

His secretary, however, was occupied with studying her former conversational partner, and didn't reply.

"I think it's his magic**,**" Harry continued. "He doesn't have it."

This did catch Bellatrix's attention again. "Say what?"

"He doesn't have magic**,**" Harry stated, firmly convincing. "He might be a squib."

"What did you say again his name was?" Bellatrix squinted at the sky.

"Arthur**,**" Harry answered. "Why?"

"He doesn't have magic, he's called Arthur, and I'll eat my hat if that bird in the sky isn't a Merlin."

Harry looked at her incredulously. "This is not happening."

"That was the name of the once-and-future king."

"That is a load of bullshit," Harry protested. "This can't be true. It's probably a coincidence."

The bird of prey circling the ship came down to land on the railing next to Arthur's hand. It was definitely smaller than a peregrine falcon.

"No way," Harry deepened his protest. "Anyway, how would you find out? Excuse me; I was wondering if you might be the immortal king of England?"

"It might be a start," Bellatrix mused.

"No way," Harry repeated at her insistent look. "There's… This will never work!"

o0O0o

"Excuse me," Harry said, feeling very foolish. "But… it's just... I was wondering..." As he stammered, he felt a blush creep up his neck, emblazoning his ears, making him feel like a teenager. "Are you King Arthur?" he finally blurted out so fast, the other man probably wasn't able to follow him.

But Arthur looked like a hippogriff caught in a Quidditch match, indicating that maybe Bellatrix was right (and wasn't that what he had employed her for?). "Of course not, where did you hear such nonsense?" he answered, and Harry would have believed him, were it not for the outrageous look of his bird.

"So this isn't Merlin, and you're not the once-and-future King?" Harry asked, trying for impish and probably landing by constipated.

The woman, who had been sitting next to Bellatrix, and with whom the latter had been gossiping, laughed out loud.

"I'm not!" Arthur protested vehemently.

The full bearded captain of the fleet turned up silently and mendaciously, looking like a weatherproof old man. "I have accepted many passengers," the sea dog grumbled with a deep well-cultured voice. "I do not often accept passengers outside of the league. I have noticed a few strange things lately. People who don't have any business travelling are migrating to the south." He spoke with a slight accent, nothing really discernible, but enough to make his speech pattern slightly off.

"It's nobody's business, if I travel to Egypt or not," the last passenger said, nondescript in his looks, clothes and behaviour.

"How does my being King Arthur or not pertain to travelling to Egypt?" Arthur said.

The woman was still snickering, but Bellatrix was sitting on her chair like a regal Empress supervising her advisers.

Harry's inner monologue had taken to screaming: 'No, not again! I don't want to face trials, have a quest, and destroy objects of innumerable evil!' But his mouth was running faster than his brain as usual. "Hi! I'm Harry James Potter, also known as the Boy-Who-Lives, and the Master of Death, nice to meet you!"

The woman laughing choked. The Captain stared, Bellatrix crossed her legs and smirked knowingly, Arthur had his mouth hanging open, and Merlin fluttered his wings very invigoratingly.

Then, a wave splashed against the railing – the nondescript man let out a low whistle. "Doesn't look like much, does he?" he asked Bellatrix quietly. "Are you really his secretary?"

She smiled a long, slow smile. "Oh, yes," she purred. "I'm his secretary."

"Well," he stood up, took a stride forward and held his hand out to Harry. "I'm the Count, nice to meet you Boy-Who-Lives."

"Simone Renoir, at your service," the woman was still coughing a bit. "Old school vampire," she explained upon his questioning glance.

"Arthur," Arthur said pointedly. Then, he relented. "The legendary king," he added.

"Captain Nemo," the bearded man continued. "And the boat is full," he pointed to the rear of the ship, where – if one squinted and didn't let the reflection of the waves bother their eyes – a very long, narrow silver sliver was visible. "I am collecting immortals."

"I don't trust you," the Count answered. "And I will not be coerced unto a vessel of which I neither know the layout, nor any viable escape routes."

"Nobody cages Merlin," Arthur agreed. "I will pass."

"Okay," Harry smiled at the intimidating man and felt wonderfully normal – he had given up paranoia about dying a long, long time ago (if he ever had it). "Sounds exciting. I have never been in a submarine." He stopped to contemplate. "Well, until two days ago, I've never actually been on a boat. This travelling is a great experience."

His so-called secretary – but probably closer to nanny one would admit – rolled her eyes, but followed him anyway. There wasn't much choice, she reflected, really. Not that the Chosen One would force her, or anything. It was just...

"_Power_," she thought. _"And charisma. The force of destiny_." She grimaced – that was after all the same thing she had used to describe the Dark Lord. He had succeeded for a while though, but then: he had failed, spectacularly.

"_Don't think about your failures_," she scolded herself. But that didn't help – not in this ostentatious wonder of a ship – there were chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, teak wood-boards; the berths had vanities! She sighed.

"_The real question is – how do I find out when Potter is acting the bumbling fool, and when he isn't? This is hard! I can't believe he was a Gryffindor."_

o0O0o

Elsewhere, having lost his secretary some three-dozen turns before, Harry Potter was standing on the bridge, accompanied by the famed Captain Nemo. During the increasingly technical diatribe the captain was spewing, he continued looking interested and attentive, up until when the captain paused for a long moment.

Then, he smiled very friendly and asked: "Say, wasn't there a chap called Captain Nemo chasing a white whale around the globe?"

The man looked at him askew. "That wasn't–" He frowned, then let out a chuckle. "How many people buy your clueless behaviour?" he asked.

The Boy-Who-Lives seemed wholly unconcerned. "Clueless behaviour?" he returned the question, and Captain Nemo, having sailed the Seven Seas enough to recognise expertly spun yarn as exactly that, almost bought the premise.

Instead of saying anything, he closed his eyes and smiled. "You remind me of a friend," he murmured, and it was almost drowned in the noise of the machines. "May you have more luck than him."

o0O0o

"Dad!" Lilly called into her mirror with a sound volume that was frightening and more reminiscent of an opera soprano than a first-year Ravenclaw. "You won't believe what has happened!"

Meanwhile, she was running in the halls, slowing down before any corner (running wasn't allowed – as well as flying, skating, bouncing, and jumping, as she had discovered during the first week at Hogwarts) towards the infirmary.

"Where's the fire, Lils?" her father answered, and she was relieved to see him smiling. He hadn't smiled for a while.

"You know, greenhouse three, where Uncle Neville keeps the dangerous plants?" she puffed out between opening and closing the secret short-cut.

"Yes, of course."

"Well, it's warded, right?" Lily continued, stumbling over a half-vanished step and almost dropping the mirror.

"Yes?" Harry answered his daughter, wondering where this was going.

"And the professor, who is a busy man, since he's the head of Gryffindor, too, only comes in to check on the plants three times a week?"

"Lily, what are you getting at?"

"James found out that some Hufflepuff seventh years were using the place to brew Amortentia and Chromia," she said very fast, and in the hope her dad would really listen, she continued slower. "So of course, he set up guards to catch them in the act."

"Oh my," her dad sighed. "Do the teachers know?"

"No," Lily said, and then added, "Dad, you're a bit blurry. What are you doing?"

"I'm cruising the Mediterranean in a submarine – look at the seabed, isn't it lovely?" he grinned at her, but then he caught up on what she was telling him. "Wait – Chromia?"

"There's a new Divination teacher," she babbled. "He's a hunk."

"Did you tell Teddy?" he cut her off.

Lily swallowed. "Albus and Scorpius – they're hurt," she confessed.

"Why didn't they…? When did this happen?"

"Half an hour ago."

"Lily, have you told the teachers?"

Lily arrived at the infirmary, and took a long breath of relief seeing Uncle Neville standing there in his night clothes. She pushed the mirror into his hands and sat beside Albus' and Scorpius' beds. James was waiting there for her, and tousled her hair. "They're all right, Lily-bear," he told her. "Professor Vane and Madame Gentian have detoxed them and healed the wounds. They're sleeping."

Neville meanwhile told the frantic father, "No, you don't have to come, everything's fine, they are on the mend."

"Let me talk to James, please," Harry said to his old friend and Neville passed the mirror to James, who took it with a wretched look.

"I hear you have been upholding the famous Potter curse," his father told him, face and voice in a neutral mask.

"Yes?" James answered meekly.

"Let me tell you what you thought when you made Albus and Scorpius partake in your wild scheme." Harry still hadn't changed his expression. "Well, they're Hufflepuffs, Albus could take them, and he has a mean right hook."

James looked chagrined.

"Right?" his father asked.

"Yes," James admitted.

"How did Lily get involved?"

"She was snooping around where she doesn't belong," James said petulantly.

"Just like you did when you found someone making Chromia and Amortentia, and didn't tell a teacher?" Harry said calmly. It wouldn't do to scream at his children, while he was angry at himself for not being able to hop over and inspect the damage. (But at some point they would have to grow up – they were old enough.) "You could have told Teddy! You could have told Neville! You could have called me, heck, you could have told Hagrid!"

"'I'm sorry Dad," James mumbled into the mirror, and let his head fall onto his arms. "Why are you and mum getting divorced?"

It was the first time James had asked that question, and Harry thought he was the one most affected by it. Lily was used to her parents arguing, and Albus was very perspective; James had missed those long five years before the separation.

"We don't – we can't work together any more. She's – James, do you remember the tale of the three brothers?"

"With the invisibility cloak you won't give me, because I make enough trouble without it?"

"The master of Death thing, rather."

"Oh," James said. "Yes. Do you have all of them?"

"Yes."

"Mum wants them?"

"No, well, in a way – James, I look younger than Teddy. She objects to that."

"Huh," his son was baffled. "You'd think she'd appreciate a young husband?"

Harry had to laugh at that. "Thank you, Jamie – you've made my day."

"So that's why you're on vacation?"

"Yes."

"Don't you want to live forever?"

"James – you're fifteen, and I look two years older than you. In twenty years, you will look eighteen years older than your own father. When you're eighty, and maybe, perhaps, have grandchildren – I will still look like I am seventeen. Would you want that?"

There was silence. Then, James said quietly, "No."

Then, he added, "Goodnight, Dad."

"Wait, James! What's that about Scorpius?" Harry called after him – he saw an impish smile, and James had cut the call.

o0O0o

The Alexandrian library had once been a complex place that housed books, scrolls, artefacts, scholars and students alike – famed around the world, it was the greatest and most complete compendium of texts. Knowledge is power, and the knowledge of the library was feared from early on – during the Ptolemaian inheritance struggles, he burned down the harbour – with a lot, still unsorted scrolls of innumerable price.

The library had therefore been moved underwater, hidden away from the common visitor and wizard alike – the bibliotheka became a neutral ground, not unlike Gringott's and the Leaky Cauldron back in England, where people could only enter under oath and protection, warded with the strongest and inventive wards, it was a fortress.

In glass domes beneath the waters of the city, the priceless treasure outwore the millennia.

Harry was no Hermione, but even he pressed his nose against the bull's eye plane, watching the little ant like people scuttle through rows upon rows upon rows of books, watched lectures being held, and looked upon the Spear of Destiny, Pandora's Box, the Holy Cauldron – David's Star, the meteor of Krypton, to name a few.

"The Black's had donated a lot to the library, some centuries ago," Bellatrix whispered into his ear, and Harry shuddered – he had not noticed her arrival.

"The Black's had donated a lot to everyone, some centuries ago," he returned the blow.

"True," the left corner of her mouth curled up. "The Potter's have been, too."

"But the Black's did it to discredit certain rumours of the inclinations of the male heir."

"The Potter's did it to return the goodwill of their fellow citizens."

"At least the Potter's never had to flee their own country!" Harry said, raising his voice.

"So what are you doing right now?" Bellatrix whispered against his ear. "Strategically retreating?"

The question was unfair, and she knew it – there was something satisfying in insulting her de-facto boss, almost as good as drawing blood for real.

He was flustered, agitated even, but he glared at her with vigour. "Why?" he asked her sweetly. "I, of course, am serving the dark Lord, who had me imprisoned for twenty years, rotting away! I live to be at his beck and call – I even tuck him in at night!"

Bellatrix didn't let on how that blow had hurt. "So that's what you're doing," she said sardonically. "And I thought you were running away to parts unknown with your secretary, while your middle aged wife takes care of your children."

"Fuck you!" Harry screamed at her, and he would not have, had she not been the perfect picture of composure, just like she had been trained to be – the only moment to let loose in duels. And he was thirty-eight, and looked like a teenager, and screamed at this sixty-something woman, and was this really necessary, or sensible?

He whipped out his wand to point it at her – she didn't flinch even a nanometre, eyes cool, controlled "_Expecto Patronum!__"_

Light flooded the chamber, the anger Harry felt slowly receded, and he was calm again, memories of his family and friends firmly in mind.

"You are a very dangerous and intelligent woman Bellatrix Lestrange," he told her. "But sometimes, there are events and consequences beyond even your control."

"Is that a promise?" she asked him, equally compelled to speak. "Or a threat?" She said the last part as if to remind him of sticking it where the sun doesn't shine.

"It might be both," he shrugged, the mask (if it was one) of the bumbling police man back in place. "There's something in the water."

He left the cabin – Bellatrix took one last look outside: A humongous Kraken, thrice the size of the Nautilus, was slowly coming near the ship. A long tentacle extended and "docked" onto one of the glass domes of the library.

"There's something in the water," she repeated. She felt light-headed.

* * *

**Author Note:**

Originally Bellatrix called Harry a dork. My beta said, she'd never use that word. (That's not funny. Really. It makes me pout. I wanted her to say dork.)

1) there were in fact pirates in the Mediterranean – I was thinking along the lines of Cicilian (ancient), and Barbary pirates (corsairs) because those were the ones with different civilisation, but then I was like: Pirates? How more cliché can you get? And so they got erased. 2) Arthur – of the Arthur myth, seeing as that there are so many different adaptations, I took some images from the TV-series. 3) the Count – has different origins (there is this fan fiction: "Altered Destinies" by DobbyElfLord wherein Harry is the Count – retro-irony of sorts 4) Simone Renoir is a vampire from the U.S. Tv-movie series "The Librarian" - I thought it fitting 5) Captain Nemo is from Jules Verne's "20.000 Miles beneath the Sea" and the league he's talking about is the league of extraordinary gentlemen; otherwise he's as muggle as they come; Arthur too 6) Harry "confuses" him with Captain Ahab of Moby-Dick 7) The episodes with the kids in Hogwarts is important. I'm not only doing that to appease my shameless heart. There's a plot! I swear! It's very much lamp-shaded too! 8) Chromia as a drug comes from "Reparations" by Sara's Girl 9) Regarding the wizard family of Potter – fan fiction normally has them pretty much on the "light" side; without regard towards the fact that even in the books there aren't only two sides, the Potter's intermarried with the Black's three or four generations ago (the Prewett's and the Potter's were intermarried, only because some Black married a Weasley she was disinherited.) - they must have stepped on someone's toes somewhen.

(Sorry, the author note is again very long.)

So this came a bit later than I planned – I have been baking wedding cakes to varying degrees of success (the only major mistake was the Croquemboche) and indexing the personal library my grandparents have left me – it's baffling what they collected on books.


	5. Alexandria

**AN:** This is a very silly chapter. I haven't updated in a while, which I'm not sorry for, at all, since my big sister married. I also had a minor writer's block, which is why my former chapter got reworked. Now it has Luna, and is consequential very silly. It has assassins. Detention. The magic shop that disappears. Stitch. And Germans (If any Germans feel insulted – the humour is self-deprecating. I'm part German. I'm also part Italian. I probably should insult some Americans and Scottish too, so that nobody feels under-appreciated.) A lack of Bellatrix.

On a further note, I feel the chapters are very much influenced by their setting, even though I don't really describe that much details. Anyone else with me?

The lovely **MrsBates93** beta-ed this chapter, too.

* * *

_**.**_

_**Cheating Death**_

_**.**_

* * *

_V. Alexandria_

* * *

o0O0o

"_Les villes_ _sont le gouffre (le extrémité) de l'espèce humaine."_

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

o0O0o

Harry strolled through the chattering mass of people, feeling rather foreign and very intimidated by the large amount of people who were clamouring for his attention. In a narrow definition of the word, he was alone, having left all of his companions, but especially Bellatrix, at the bibliotheka to argue this or that theory, on why all the immortals had felt the need to visit Alexandria.

(At least, they weren't arguing how to interpret his word – like the immortals had done down in the basilica. Or told him his life stories, like some of the older women had done. Of course, there was also that thing with the Kraken Bellatrix was still mad about – he didn't really understand why, seeing as where there was a Captain Nemo, there had to be a Kraken – or was that Captain Ahab and the big white whale?)

The bazaar of Alexandria was a fascinating place, the muggle and magical world mixed so tightly together, Harry couldn't tell which one he was in. It smelled of cardamom, and ginger, cinnamon and opium, myrrh – the colours were bright and flashy, but somehow still natural. The noises and voices fit together into a melody that gripped the heart and went into your soul.

He took a deep breath – it tasted like coffee, bitter and sweet, and turned to ignore one of the vendors. Right next to a few seats with men and their water pipes, was an attractive little shop – one of those you happen on once in a decade, where you will find a wedding gift for your yet unborn grandchild, the same tile that has been missing in your bathroom floor since the waterlines broke some years ago which the floor tiler didn't have any more of, and the long-loved children's book you'd sold accidentally in your youth. It had the right glamours, the adorable store front, which most people weren't able to see.

When he entered, the bell chimed what someone more cultured than Harry (or more German) would have recognised as the "The Coffee Cantata", a song by Johann Sebastian Bach. The room was stuffed to the brim with the most curious artefacts – Harry recognised seven-league boots, an Amulet from Samarkand, several witch hats of various forms, colours and sizes, silver cutlery, a (forged?) diadem of Ravenclaw, some fans…

"Mr Potter," a raspy voice spoke suddenly, and Harry almost dropped the yellow stone he had picked up. "I didn't expect you to come here."

"Funny," Harry answered and glanced around the shop looking for the owner of that very familiar voice. "I didn't expect to be here either."

"You have an appointment," the voice was coming from behind a tower of books, haphazardly stacked on top of each other. The man, to whom the voice belonged, was folded (for you couldn't call it anything else) on the chair behind it, squashed by rolls of carpets on one side, and a statue of Poseidon (instead of the usual spear, he held a simple broom in his hands). He looked like a spider, long-limbed and tall, round-rimmed sunglasses, and his hair was tied back.

"I do?" Harry asked.

"Indeed," the man said, and waved his hand with an abrupt gesture, that almost made the book tower topple over. "Assassins. They're waiting in the alley opposite. Apparently, they are wanting to test if you're really immortal, or just too chicken to– excuse me, Sir. You must have wanted something."

"I did?"

"Yes, this shop is only open to those that need something from within."

"Hmm," Harry made an uncertain noise and looked over the mess that was the shop. "What do you think I would need?"

"Well..." the shopkeeper started as he brandished an umbrella (green, with blue dots). "Most people wouldn't need an impenetrable umbrella, but seeing you have an appointment with the assassins..."

Harry looked at the umbrella, at the shopkeeper, and then shook his head. "No thanks. I think someone else might need that more than me."

"Is it the colour? I have it in plain black, too… wait!" The shopkeeper rummaged in the depths of a cardboard box. "Perhaps the snow-bells of luck?"

Harry stared at the tiny, filigree glass flowers; the shopkeeper had pulled out of a heap of other, less breakable objects. "Uhm. You wouldn't have anything to do with Death, do you?"

"Of Death?" the man said surprised. "That's an unusual request. Hmhmhm. Death."

The shopkeeper vanished behind a closet. Harry heard him murmur to himself, "Bag of teeth from the tooth-fairy. Frau Holle's feather blanket, no no no. What's – whiskers from Bastet, the... ahh." He came forward, holding a hairbrush, stylised with skulls and clocks, made out of bones.

"Seriously?" Harry asked incredulously. "A hairbrush?"

The man looked at Harry in mystification. "Death's hairbrush," he corrected his customer.

"Why would Death need a hairbrush?"

The shopkeeper didn't lose the look. "Why would anyone need a hairbrush?"

Harry stared at the man, who had plaited braids - the tiny ones, where you had to sit still for hours, and you weren't able to get them out until...well. He almost conceded with "Point taken," but since looking at the strawberry coloured hat, he couldn't stop thinking about home – the kids, Hermione and Ron, Kingsley and the others. He also thought of risks worth taking, and the joy of living and said, "Alright, I'll take it. But I need presents for my children – that hat over there, and that dagger."

"Would I be able to interest you..." the shopkeeper jumped upon that vulnerability, and not unlike the vultures outside, at the bazaar, he sweet-talked and flattered his prey into his trap.

o0O0o

Harry left the shop several stone heavier than when he had entered. That would have annoyed him, if he hadn't been as satisfied as he was. Lost in his daydreams, he wandered past the vendors outside, who were still clamouring for his attention, but seeing him very obviously satisfied deterred most of them – Harry didn't notice.

Harry also didn't notice when he accidentally took a wrong turn into a narrow and very dark alley.

Five dark shadows followed him in – stealthily they crept after him, terrifyingly silent in their sinister task. The sixth and seventh shadows were already waiting on the rooftops of the buildings, not very well hidden.

He did notice, when the first would-be assassin, fell down from the bay with an angry – something (it was blue and looked almost nothing like a cat), chewing on his nose.

"Was ist das! Mach es weg!" he screamed, clutching his nose, which had swelled to the size of a pear.

"Sticheroo! Where are you?" a female voice chirped. She seemed vaguely familiar. Then, a little more insistent, she called, "Heel! You're supposed to find Harry, not run away for raisin buns!"

"Luna!" another voice, this one male and entirely unfamiliar to Harry, entered the voice range. "I will lose you too!"

Luna floated into the alley – it's terribly trite, but she illuminated the way. She was wearing some cross between mirrors and reflectors, so you can't really make out her face – either way; she blinded half of the men in the alley. This was lucky, because even Harry Potter, his friend and her husband would be hard pressed to take out six professional assassins.

Luna performed a round house kick (momentarily distracting Harry to the point of drooling), and employed the umbrella she was carrying like a hammer on a nail onto one of the assassin's heads.

Harry shook his head in amazement, and continued trying to stun or otherwise incapacitate the hitmen.

Luna's husband was using the _Accio_ charm on buildings, creating an effect like Batman did with his grapple hook, very successfully confusing the assassins who apparently weren't very used to their target fighting back, much less with such extraordinary methods.

"Have you met my husband Rolf?" Luna asked, while using her umbrella most unfairly on one of the men.

"Uh," Harry was too concerned with ducking the killing curses to answer properly. "Yeah. N' Lorcan n' Lysander. Twins."

Luna opened her umbrella to deflect six oncoming curses – one of them reflected onto it's source.

"Great investment," she told Harry. "Nundu scales. Rolf is a naturalist. They were a blast!"

"Uhuh." Harry knew, he sounded sceptical, since he was there when the herd of Nundu's escaped the Magical Zoo of London – that was the great catastrophe of 2019, by the way.

After they had dealt with the almost-assassins (which involved the law enforcement, not Luna's umbrella, but that was a near thing...), Luna shook her head and said, "Wonder why they sent German assassins... everyone knows they can't kill a fly."

"Oh," Harry said, pretty much flummoxed, Luna even knew they were German. "How does everyone know that?"

"Hitler – they tried to kill him 42 times, but as we all know, they couldn't," she answered, matter-of-factly.

"Wasn't he protected by wards from Grindelwald?"

Luna laughed. "As if Grindelwald would have cared for that person! He couldn't even get into art school! There were lots of other puppets Grindelwald could have used. The war wouldn't have stopped that easily. Anyway, I hear you're off to see the deadly Death of Doom?" She brushed off the dust on her dress and adopted the dreamy expression with which she could have fooled Eugenides himself.

"Yes I am," Harry agreed perplexed. "How do you know?"

She pinched his cheek cheerfully, and Harry suddenly realised that Luna might be more scary than anyone he had ever met. "Dearie, not only people talk about you. You're famous!"

"Okay," Harry said tentatively, and let Luna show him the three items she had brought him from god knows where.

A figure, unnoticed by the trio, had been watching the fight. He was clad in rags and tatters, fairly on the thin side. Out of his tiny pocket, he first drew a pocket watch – gold, very fancy – then, a top-hat and gloves.

He stepped into thin air – and vanished without a trace.

o0O0o

Back in the library complex, Bellatrix was whining about being left to fend for herself alone, against "all these filthy people!" which Harry decidedly ignored for the sake of his sanity.

When she started to narrate her day (and mock him mercilessly) he didn't feel guilty anymore.

"You know the section in the Library, where you can look at every piece of media equipment available?"

Harry knew he would dread what would be said next. He knew he was doomed.

"And you told me not to call you the Chosen One?"

Why hadn't anyone invented a spell you could use to bury your head into sand?

"Then how about the Desirable No. 1?"

"Mercy!" he screamed at the top of his lungs and tried to overtone what she was saying. "Have mercy on me!"

"No? How about…"

There are a few times when an adult wizard does accidental magic. General consent is, that it must be a life-threatening event. None could have explained why Bellatrix Lestrange wasn't able to utter a word for three days.

Harry used those peaceful days to hide from another pesky admirer, searching for that magical shop he wasn't able to find, to return the hairbrush of Death and speaking to Luna.

The latter required much patience and a mind so wide open it spanned over all eleven dimensions and an extra few on top of that. (He also found a librarian who could actually tell him where he would find the section about Death – it wasn't in the Esoterica, nor the Spiritual, nor by Magical Beings– it also wasn't with the Creature department, or Dangers of Life, but past the Important People, and the Very Important People to the Extraordinary Important People (filed directly above Santa Claus and beneath G-d) – how anyone was supposed to work with this system was a mean miracle).

o0O0o

After three days, Harry was sick of the city, the country, and most of all the sand. He wasn't really sure how the desert sand could get into an underwater facility, but behold – it could. The sand was also able to go into every nook and cranny it could find, and three days was enough time to get really, really sick of the feeling, but not enough time to get used to it.

Also, the Count appeared and never left his side. The condescending sneer and words reminded Harry of the Malfoys, past and present, Professor Snape, and his trainer at the Auror Academy – that all of them had eaten their words didn't settle the sting.

(Harry was comparing this whole travel experience to something Aunt Petunia had said long ago, about guests and how they were like fish - if they stayed for more than three days, they began to reek.)

He thought, (drank a coffee) and thought, (smoked a pipe) and thought some more and finally came to the conclusion that the whole culture was draining him of his determination, and if he sat there and thought one day longer, he would forget the shaving charm, wear long dresses to keep out of the sand, and would talk of the incomprehensibleness of living and wave all problems away with a laid-back "Insha'Allah."

So he stood up, went to find his secretary (who may or may not have been killing immortals for the heck of it, but he chose to ignore that, since what could he do, 5000 miles from home?) and took the next boat out.

o0O0o

"Dad?" this time, it was James who answered the mirror.

"Is that Filch's filing cabinet I'm looking at?" Harry asked his eldest son suspiciously.

"No," James answered shiftily.

"Are you lying to me?" Harry asked.

"No," James answered, more sure of himself.

"Well..." Harry decided to let this topic slide. "So, what's up?"

"There was an article in the Daily Prophet," James began.

"And... that's important why?"

"There was a picture of mum with another man. He's an American ambassador etc." James was silent for a while, but clearly wanted to continue, so Harry waited. "I wondered…" he finally continued.

Harry nodded.

"Were you only waiting for the divorce until we were all old enough to understand? They called it a nest flight. Said, mum was dating someone she was obviously familiar with, and you were vacationing beyond the reach of reporters, abandoning your children to school."

"You know the papers are all a bunch of hypocritical arse-wipes with a fucked-up sense of humour?" Harry stated.

James smiled a wry smile, and while he looked much surer of himself and of the world than Harry at that age, Harry wasn't so enthused about what he was doing to his child.

"I'll always come back for you, James – I swear."

The moment was interrupted by a voice that posed a question, "Mr. Potter? What are you doing? I was very clear with my instructions!"

There was a very short, "Bye, Dad!" and Harry shouted to a black screen, "It's the new caretaker's filing cabinet, isn't it?"

* * *

**AN**: 1) "_Les villes sont le gouffre de l'espèce humaine." - _Cities are the end of the human species. He actually says abyss. 2) "The Coffee Cantata" is a concerto by J.S. Bach mocking the coffee addiction of the modern people – familiar to you? ;) It was written between 1732 and 1734. 3) The snowbells of luck are borrowed from Neil Gaiman's Stardust 4) Frau Holle is a figure in German fairy tales and is responsible for snow. Bastet is the Egyptian goddess of cats, Lower Egypt, the moon and the sun, love, or fertility, sometimes even together 5) "Was ist das! Mach es weg!" - is German: What's this! Make it go away! 6) Insha'Allah is invoked like a prayer, not only in Islam, but also Christian groups in the Middle East. "God willing." It's said like twenty times a day.

Apparently, this story has been added to a community. Thanks also for all the followers and favourites (and the reviews, of course!)


	6. To Russia With Love

**AN**: Don't own anything and Kudos to **MrsBates93**, the loveliest beta ever.

* * *

**_._**

**_Cheating Death_**

**_._**

* * *

_VI. To Russia With Love_

* * *

o0O0o

"Coming in we're hot, hot, hot -

fire and we're shot, shot, shot."

Peter Tosh – Coming In Hot

o0O0o

"I wouldn't wait for another boat to come," the man at the ticket counter said. It's hidden from the muggles, of course, but it's still in the tourist centre, so nobody wonders why some oddly dressed nutters are frequenting the area.

("_There should be no discrimination,"_ Harry mused, but tourists and Russians deserve it. Not counting, of course, himself – barring some ridiculous long-hidden inheritance.)

"It's between seasons, you see – summer tourism has already abated, and the new workers are staying for at least another month. There is the Black Sea Express which arrives in two days, but you will be faster if you go through the NEA and take the line over to Gibraltar. Of course, there are always the muggle routes – but did you hear about the couple of extreme athletes, taking the aeroplanes to Lunt? The man died – but the wife, the wife! Imagine living the rest of your life without the joys of magic! No good, travelling over the waters, I tell ya. A man should stay where he was born and raised, I always say."

Harry lets the guide ramble on, while he scratches his stubbly chin and wonders if that slave bracelet from the shop he couldn't find would control Bellatrix's incessant clicking noise. He looks along the coastline: there's Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco he has to cross – or as it was better known the Kingdom of North-East Africa. It's not the most stable of regions at the best of times. And currently there's a Kraken in the Mediterranean.

"Do you know someone in Russia who knows something about the mysterious after-life and it's keeper?" he asks Bellatrix.

She stops trying to corrode his nerve system through random noises and smirks, "Maybe. It's going to cost you though."

Harry has been – despite looking otherwise – married for twenty years, and hasn't been to school for twenty-two, and isn't stupid. He knows how people work. He's – was – an Auror, for goodness sake. He knows Bellatrix is a psychopath, a functioning one, but at the drop of a hat she could – would – be able to snap. He questions his sanity (he does that often these days; is that supposed to reassure him?). He is her handler, though – her boss, even her head of family (since Rodolphus kicked the bucket, and inheritance laws always were rather archaic.) "Oh, yeah?" he says that with arrogance copied from James – who is a natural when it comes to being arrogant , and the nasty looks he may or may not have stolen from Snape.

For a minute Bellatrix looks baffled, then she smiles (smiles!) and answers, "Never mind. You're getting there all on your own."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Harry asked, he was between being pissed off and curious, because whatever it was that gave Bellatrix this kind of look – it couldn't be good.

"Nothing," she said quickly and now Harry really knows she's off her game –never ever had she been this obviously lying.

He shoots her another look – this one most definitely not stolen from Snape.

"It's..." she begins, and when she stutters, the wheels in Harry's brain start turning. "I'm – like – a minion. It's – I like it when you're all forceful."

"_Okay..._" Harry thought. "_I'm _definitely _creeped out now."_

"Not like that," she stated, and blushes (Blushes! The mind boggles!) "It's just – you remind me of Snape – when he was younger, of course. You're a bit less sarcastic, and much more pleasing on the eye – aesthetically speaking of course. But you've got the same..." she makes a hand gesture Harry doesn't want anyone to ever repeat, much less a woman a lot older than his mum.

"Snape!" he exclaimed instead of voicing anything that could be used against him at a later date. "You're blushing because I remind you of Snape."

"Terrible isn't it?" She smiles ruefully, and though she has killed his godfather, tortured the Longbottom's and spent years as Voldemort's number 1 hench-woman, Harry doesn't find it in himself to be deliberately mean to her.

Rationally, he knows that _this is a bad idea_. In fact, he knows this is such a bad idea it might come to be a good one – although that possibility seems very, very improbable. He shouldn't listen to her, he shouldn't believe her, he shouldn't try to infer events from the stuff that comes out of her mouth, but he hears Dumbledore in his head, still – sometimes. The mystery department in the Department of Mysteries for example, forces of nature, love - "it's your choices-" - all of them had underestimated the influence Dumbledore could evoke over him -"through and through Dumbledore's man..."

Why was Teddy not more upset about having the murderer of his parent's in Harry's constant presence? Because Harry had objected to Dumbledore's pet death-eater more times than he could ever count – had never shown respect, or even appreciation for being rescued, taught, and chewed out. Granted, he was a teenager, but so was Teddy (almost) and Harry had been tempered by the war. (But when he looked back, he saw a squeamish, at best the beginning of a civil struggle.)

He calls Teddy on the mirror.

Who doesn't answer.

o0O0o

When they have finally decided to take the back route to the Colonies of Magical America – meaning they're hopping over the Bering Strait; they promptly get kidnapped crossing over the Jordan.

While kidnapped may not be the appropriate term, it's pretty accurate for what happens. They're at the Dead Sea (guess why) collecting some ingredients for various purposes, and are on their way to crossing the Jordan (another guess as to why), when suddenly the world went dark.

(The last complete total solar eclipse was another while away and Harry knew he was still conscious, but he couldn't see a thing. That was worrisome.)

(The dark did not only rob him of his sight, but all surrounding noises – he heard Bellatrix, that was all.)

(And they really should use some communication method for the hazards of travelling as an immortal – barely remembering the last incident with assassins – or would-be murderers. But he had to give Bellatrix credit – she knew exactly how to handle kidnappings. If it were, that is. It could also be some kind of magical whatever that has nothing to do with terrorists at all – but he trusts his instincts on this.

.

.

.

When it goes dark, Bellatrix thinks, _"Finally."_

It's not that she appreciates this attempt on her life (if it is on her life, but better safe than sorry), but that she expected an assassination attempt since the arrival in Naples, and is seriously insulted by the lack of fore-sight among the villains of today.

Long overdue, she still notices that these people don't follow the code very well – the first attempt should include at least one test of strength, but it doesn't. (Es sei den... but no, Harry would tell her – wouldn't he?)

The location for an attack is chosen very well – most wizards keep well away from the Death Sea and the Jordan and anything that might cross him. (While normal streams disrupt (or rather dislodge) the natural streams of magic the Jordan is a natural anomaly – theories don't hold up well against the natural stubbornness of the Jordan river.)

The third – maybe fourth thought – goes out towards the darkness. She hasn't exactly been in this kind before, but she knows something McNair had used while transporting violent creatures – something Junior had invented. No point in struggling, anyway – they're in Israel, and if it's up to her, the rest of the Orient is just as useless. (One time, the Dark Lord had sent her down there – let's just say, it didn't end very well.)

Then, she realises – if they're kept in one of McNair's boxes, they have been kidnapped because of Potter's immortality, and how he achieved it. It's hilarious, it's so freaking hilarious, since Potter's the most goody-two-shoes she has ever met, but achieving immortality is the most telling factor for arriving at the most-badass-villain-around status. It's a cause to break out her most satisfied grin – she's moving up in the world. (Do they expect her to treat Potter like she treated the Dark Lord? Because that was partly due to the mutated bond he used on the Dark Mark and partly through the fault of the circumstances...)

She creeps up to where she hears Potter breathing and whispers, because the atmosphere demands it, "They're death-eaters. It's a magic-resistant black box. They're testing you, because you travel with me and are immortal," she stated very quietly. "They will probably have some elaborate plan to get information."

"What do they want from me?" Potter asked – he doesn't speak quietly and it's unnaturally loud in the enclosed space.

"Cooperation? Collaboration? Gold? Information? A leader? How am I supposed to know?" Bellatrix doesn't exactly lie to her employer. Working relationships depend on an interchange of trust, and you can't trust someone who lies to you and vice versa. But she has learned fighting in a guerrilla war of terror, and interrogation techniques in the midst of a war that was called the Terror Years of Britain, while there was an all-around panic about muggle extermination with weapons that killed people and magic alike. She had learned politics and diplomacy in a prison, where most of the guards had family killed by her or her kin. She can guess very accurately.

Potter latches onto the one thing, she had calculated on. "A leader?" he asked incredulously.

(Had they not been in the dark, and she had had to rely on her hearing and instinct, maybe she could have guessed that he wasn't as stupid as he had made himself out to be. But Bellatrix was still accustomed to him being a baby – or a teenager respectively, which wasn't too far from the first – and so she underestimated him. Maybe she would have also, had it not been dark, since he looked so young –but errare humanum esse.)

"Yes," she answered and rolled her eyes. "Because if they have a leader, he's probably only a little bit stronger than his followers are, and brilliant people are hard to come by – but an immortal..." she trails of suggestively.

"But I don't want to be immortal."

"Do they know that? You could be touring the world in search of allies, that's all they know. You met the King of Britain. You met the most prominent force on and under the Seven Seas – you met a seer. You went to the temple of wisdom. What else were you doing if not something very, very suspicious?"

"But– that was chance, pure luck..." Harry protests.

"Maybe," Bellatrix said, but she doesn't really believe it. "_It's more along the lines of fate_," she thinks. "But you were born under a prophecy– a prophecy the Dark Lord wanted to kill you for. And everybody knows Dark Lords don't share very well."

Potter chokes. "They think... They think _I'm _the next Dark Lord? Have they met _me_?"

Bellatrix thinks about the fury he had when he was barely fifteen –the magical and inner strength to stand against Lord Voldemort two years later – the inner convictions he has, the fact that as soon as he visits the Library of Alexandria, immortals flock down there. How he meets all the important members of world history by chance –she stays very, very quiet.

o0O0o

They only catch glimpses of their captors, before they're put into a cell that looks closer to a honeymoon suite in a really tacky hotel than a cell in a dungeon, somewhere.

Bellatrix takes one look at it, and proclaims, "This is the work of Rosier."

Potter, who may or may not have realised he's staring at the orange heart that engulfs the pink headboard, replies, "Rosier? Wasn't he killed by Mad-Eye thirty years ago?"

"More like almost forty, but I wasn't talking about Evan, but his sister Eva."

"Was she a death-eater?"

"Not all of the Dark Lord's allies were death-eaters. The women were principally not. So was the werewolf."

"So why were you?"

Bellatrix answers, before she realises. "I was the first." The answer is useless, and not at all what he asked in subtext, but literally. "They want something from us," she stated out loud. "There's a spell on this room that makes us compulsively answer the questions asked."

It's ridiculous really, how these capable adult wizards have to employ party tricks to get what they want. The spell is full of holes, the most prominent that they only have to answer the question asked, because one can wrap the truth and tell it all the same – one can answer a question, but not answer the question at the same time.

Potter looks shocked for a second, and then he smiles a slow, but steady smile and winks at her. Then, as if she had said nothing, he repeats the question.

"I was the first woman to take the mark. What he didn't know back then, was that because he used a deviation of a formal bonding mark, it had an influence on the emotion of the marked. It was basically a short-circuit to the important parts of the brain. Since the bonding of former times, where such marks were used, wanted to control one particular sex – and the Dark Lord confirmed to the more patriarchal of his time – the women were dependent on the marker."

"So– it made you fall in love with him? Or your husband?"

Bella looks at him quite curiously, especially for asking that question. "No, I was never in love with the Dark Lord," she said finally. "I was – you could say fascinated and entranced and – obsessed with the Dark Lord and his power. It made me high. And of course, he was as beautiful as the angel of Death."

She pours the liquid in the tumbler on a sideboard (this one orange) into a glass and sniffs it. Then, she gives it to Harry, who makes a gesture no one should be allowed to in a honeymoon suit – the liquid glows green, so he takes a sip. "And I wasn't in love with my husband, but you might have expected that." She grins. "I probably married him for his name – the strange Warrior, almost as good as Black – has a certain ring to it, doesn't it?" She laughs, and then she continues with the question. "No, the one I loved was Snape."

Potter makes a noise, not unlike a disturbed pig.

She stares into her cup of tea, swishes the fluid around and looks up into his eyes. She smiles ruefully. "Severus," she says softly. "He wasn't beautiful, nor was he good-looking. If you meant well, you'd say he was distinctive - maybe not even that. He may have been even ugly, but I didn't like beautiful men. They were conceited. Like my sister's husband. Oh, well. Severus was brave. He was powerful. He could be radiant, and quiet and heavy - almost regal. And if you had angered him, he sprouted off a controlled fury, much like the Dark Lord, but in contrast to him, you'd know when you overstepped your boundaries. He was knowledgeable, intelligent. Clever! It didn't matter to me that he was ugly, or a half-blood, or socially inept. That was what made him human. And I really, really loved him." She stares into the distance, or maybe at the myrtle plant in the shape of a heart.

"He was in love with Lily Evans. And as stupid as that sounds, that made me realize I was in love with him. He didn't waver once. In his whole life, he was devoted to her. The Dark Lord didn't know, but then he generally didn't know much about feelings. The Dark Lord was unable to see those of his followers that loved deeply and strong – my sister and Lucius' marriage, for instance. Nothing could ever come between them. But that didn't matter at first, because we didn't need an emotional leader. We were all strong. Very strong followers. Conceited, stubborn. Full of pride." She stirred the golden liquid in her glass. "But boy was Severus Snape a man..."

They hear footsteps as the door is about to be opened. Bellatrix is closer, and anyway, she's the minion, so she is the one who grabs Eva Rosier's wand hand, and twists her around. The unfortunate woman lets out a squeak, and the two "prisoners" leave their cell.

o0O0o

Harry is vaguely impressed by how well they work together – fighting, that is. The last time, he and Bellatrix fought, it was on different sides and in a whole other world altogether.

But they take down Eva Rosier without even using magic (which tends to work better, but who keeps count on that), and when the other people – Harry swears, he sees someone looking like Crouch, but that may just be a trick of the light – attack, it takes them a few well-aimed spells to dispatch them.

Of course, that's when Teddy calls back.

He almost drops the wand of captor number three, when Teddy's voice pops up – he and Bellatrix turn around the corner, and their kidnappers are clearly fore-warned. Harry ducks just in time to catch himself a mild blood-burning curse, and feels himself tickled (by the extreme pain of hot – HOT! - fire in his veins).

Bellatrix is already hurling pain curses at their opponents that engulf the hall in a cacophony of colours – Teddy is mildly screaming, and Harry gets the curse under control only to mangle up that complicated shield for indoor fighting, so that he has to slap the fish he somehow produces (and no, he doesn't know how, or else he could revolutionise the whole Transfiguration process – Hermione spent years – years! - trying to figure out how he does it) around. It's not magic, but if you've ever smelt a transfigured fish, you'd know it doesn't have to.

So he clears the rest of the hallway with the fish in one hand, the wand in the other, and it takes him a while to notice that with his accidental weapon he has put his partner out of the fight – with a general healing spell she's up again. She is wrinkling her nose and generally puts on an air that says, 'Really, Potter? A fish?' disdainfully clear.

"Let's find the guy who put them up to this. He doesn't seem to be very clever –do you think there's a ballroom in here?" he asked.

"Harry? Are you done yet, or do I have to call later?" Teddy pipes up from the mirror.

Harry looks to Bellatrix, who shrugs. "Don't know. What's up?"

"I may have called to look where you are and to scold you for cock-blocking me," Teddy replied, deadpan as was his usual way of responding.

Harry, of course, dad of a teen-aged bunch – latches onto the last line, "Teddy! Aren't you to young..." he notices what he is saying, and revises his rant. "Tell me, you were at least using protection!"

Teddy raises an eyebrow – which he must have inherited from his grandmother, because no one in this family could raise only one. "It didn't go that far. Because my might-as-well-be-dad was calling me. Anyway. Great-aunt Bellatrix, greetings. My grandmother wants me to tell you, that I have the family magic under control. Me, not Harry. I turned twenty a year ago, and Harry gave me partial control of my Inheritance, just in case you were... wondering." The last word is said so frostily, there's practically an ice-beam coming from the mirror. Harry doesn't want to think about where he might have inherited _that_.

Bellatrix smiles sardonically, and curtsies. "Understood, my Lord."

Teddy grimaces.

Harry decides, it's time to interrupt and change the topic and smiles very, very brightly. "So! Bellatrix and I have been kidnapped while crossing over the Jordan and are now god knows where. I guess Eastern Europe, because that makes the most sense, but we could be somewhere in Africa, for all I know."

Teddy takes one look at the décor, and says with conviction. "Nope. Looks like Eastern Europe to me."

"Racist," Harry mumbles, and hopes Teddy doesn't hear him, before the conversation descends into pre-teen topics.

"Specist," Teddy replies – and this is one of the times Harry knows he got at least some of the perks of being a werewolf, because there's just no way in hell that this is the natural hearing range of a human (Of course, his mirror could also have an extra sensitive surface, but who wants to think about that.)

Bellatrix coughs.

"So, anyway," Harry changes the topic again. "Is everything alright in England?"

"Not England specifically," Teddy answered. "But there's something weird about James' divination teacher. He's a bit... I don't know."

There's someone around the corner, and he wants them to notice him, so Harry wraps up the call with, "Huh. Well, call me if something comes up. See you later." He gestures to Teddy to end the call, and as soon as the mirror goes blank, a ray of green light comes around the corner.

If he ducks, it will connect with Bellatrix, and anyway, it's a blink of an eye decision, he's immortal and eternally young, and anyway, it's not as if he has time to duck from the light that comes right towards the centre of his body – it connects.

o0O0o

Bellatrix has found out who is behind all of this.

Really, she should have from the moment she saw Eva – and the apple beside the door. She was just – preoccupied because they should have tested them, but maybe it's not their partnership that's being tested here, but the status of mortality.

There's only one person connected to the death-eaters and Eva Rosier who would put them in a honeymoon-suite.

So when the green light comes around the corner she's not at all surprised. She doesn't even flinch, when the Killing Curse connects right into Harry's body as if it's an annoying fly. She wonders for a second why he hadn't ducked, but well, heroes. Self-sacrificing idiots.

o0O0o

Somewhere, on the soil of the former Sovjet Union, a man in black was watching.

Somewhere, on the soil of the former Sovjet Union, specifically in Russia on the Crimea, a man in black, who is relevant to this story, is watching a former hotel, now used as a base for the terror organisation formerly known as the "death-eaters". (There's a lot of former in the former sentence, but the Crimea is still called the Crimea, and death-eaters although now they call themselves the avengers, will always be death-eaters. Russia, well Russia will always be a mess.)

The man is clad in a black suit, wears sunglasses and a gun and seems fairly amused – it's three in the morning, and when he takes his gun out, it's a flame-thrower.

o0O0o

Harry has some experience with killing curses. (He may or may not have some experience with dying, but he still doesn't know – and for goodness sake, he won't speculate! - if the meeting with Tumbledown was in his head, or not.)

He remembers blackness (at least at first) and a feeling of weightlessness.

This time, it tickles.

There's no black-out, which might be because now he's used to killing curses, or because he keeps his eyes open, and doesn't stumble.

The man before him, stares at him with wide, incredulous eyes, and lets his wand fall to the ground. "You... what?"

(Outside, a man smiles like someone has told a hilarious joke with a hidden meaning only he has access to.)

"Haven't you heard?" Bellatrix tells him and picks up his abandoned wand with a seductive shimmer of her hips (she may be old, but it's the prime of her life!). "There's something brewing."

o0O0o

They interrogate the son of Rosier and Dolohov, who had somehow evaded the ministry after the initial sweep-up after the Voldemort debacle. Harry guesses, it had less to do with talent or luck, but because nobody could imagine the boy to do much damage.

He's brilliant with spell-theory, but lacks conviction, charm or any other leadership qualities. There's nothing much to mark him as a dark wizard.

They tell him they're searching for Death, which impresses him suitably, but when he doesn't know much more folklore than the tale of the three brothers (and while it is relevant, it doesn't help them get any further.)

The kid has a bit of a spleen: he calls Harry the original man, and asks if he can be Cain – but because he's named Damien, that may be forgiven.

When they leave the hotel, they have to fight their way to a throng of men with leather-jackets and alcohol on their breaths. They don't notice any strange men. (Well, stranger than the ones left on the street at 4 am.)

o0O0o

Two days later, they're all the way up over the Ural Mountains, and past the Siberian Tundra. That's where they encounter a sandstorm of epic proportions.

* * *

**AN**: 1) Yes. There is a subtle joke about the mysterious ticking noise in here. No, I won't apologise =) 2) The NEA - North-East African Kingdom, is a purely fictional construct left over from the Carthaginian Empire (of course, it had been part of the Roman Empire, but England had been too.) 3) There are many places near East-Africa and the Arabic peninsula that were once seen as a way to the other side. I choose only to employ the crossing the Jordan thing, because after a while all the places seem the same. So while Harry and Bellatrix are probably combing every bit of local folklore for their residual death, we don't see it all. Because in part, this story is about home, and why going out to search for fate or death is as ridiculous as importing water from France to America (water people! The thing that taste like almost nothing – sorry. /rant end 4) Crimea - or the Crimean Peninsula is a place (very uninteresting to boot) the Russians and the English fought about prior to WWI. It's now technically Ukrainian. 5) Eva Rosier is a non-canon OC. She has been added because almost none of the death-eaters seem to have siblings and that's just –no. 6) Damien Dolohov is a nerd. He also has a practical idea of how to conquer the world, but an over-bearing mother, and nobody listens to him. Someday, I'm gonna write him a omake.

I feel very rantful today, because of this new feature on the document editor. It's very cool to have a spellchecker, really. But - do they have to tell me when I'm using passive? (I know it's passive. I have written it that way!) there's also that adorable feature that tells me I have been using (what's the phrase...) "complex expressions" (to those who haven't used the spell check - it marks "for example" and "currently"), but the most interesting phrase it marks is "born and raised" - why? Because it's clichéd. (I want to repeat that, but I won't because I will stay strong.) Who knew? The phrase prior to is also clichéd. I'm stumped. I am terrifyingly fascinated. It mocks me.

People! I'm half-done! (Pending natural disasters like incredible ideas and/or other sisters that marry. Or spell-checkers.)


	7. Muddy the Waters

**Warning**: Fiction! Half-truths and clichés... also – as one anonym person has pointed out: the geography might be slightly off. (I hate, hate, hate the fact that borders are constantly changing ;) Also, I might be the worst student at Geography ever.)

* * *

_._

**_Cheating Death_**

_._

* * *

_VII. Muddy the Water_

* * *

o0O0o

"_Wer den Karren in den Dreck gezogen hat, muss ihn auch wieder herausziehen."_

~ "Him, who dragged the cart into the mud, has to pull it out again."

German proverb

o0O0o

The people of the land, the country, and those in the flatlands are particular and different in every country – in Russia there are whole landscapes of terrain that are unpopulated.

In Russia, you can find everything, almost but entirely unlike its former counterpart: the United States of America. In Russia, sometimes the world burns – forest fires and continental heat, summers so hot people die in the hundreds; sometimes the earth cracks due to heat, sometimes due to cold. There are perma-frost zones, parts, where the sun doesn't shine.

Here, magic has always been near. Who else would stay here, but those who are equipped with heating charms, fire spells, magical cooling, resistance to much of the natural flora and fauna.

o0O0o

"I think..." Bellatrix says, and looks demonstratively at the trees that surround them. There's no path. The last one they had been on they had lost awhile back, but there was nothing, is nothing, so they keep on flying. Technically, they're flying on a carpet, and should be able to see the distance – the problem about carpet-travelling though, is that there's a limited time of flight depending on the height of carpet, the overall travelling speed and the weight and magic of the passengers.

While Harry and Bellatrix both have sufficient magic, and normal weight distribution, they were on a quest Harry would have liked to resolve earlier than later. The fastest way to travel was therefore barely a few feet above ground, where being surrounded by trees and the fog of incoming autumn was unhelpful.

"We might be lost."

Harry doesn't deem an answer necessary. It's pretty obvious that they are indeed as lost as a wizard could ever get. He tries a point-me-spell and steers them east, because sooner or later they will pass a creek, and later rather than sooner they will arrive at the coast.

Then, of course, suddenly the forest disappears – instead they're crossing a wide open space. In the distance, there's fog, probably hiding forests, but the plain is clear. Another twenty minutes, and they're crossing the bed of a dried-up river – the carpet buckles like a rambunctious hippogriff.

"I have no idea where we are," Harry repeats his mantra since leaving the more populated areas of the south. For some reason, it helps him prevent his descent into an unending panic and clears his head.

.

.

Hours later, there's a sandstorm. (It's more like a vicious storm – but the earth is very sandy and flies easily.) They can't fly. They can't find shelter. Harry tries some of the spells he remembers from going camping, but apparently they don't hold out that well against 200 km/h wind. Harry (who vaguely remembers his lessons in Science class about spindle-shaped objects, but clearly remembers spells accelerating the wind velocity of brooms – not to mention Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail.) finally adapts a vaguely round shaped shield against solid attacks. Bellatrix charms their clothes against wind, non-existent rain (but it helps a bit against the sand corns) and cold.

There's nothing left to do but wait.

o0O0o

The harangued raven bird, which was similarly surprised by the storm as the two other travelers, caws feebly when he's propelled against an invisible shield divorcing him from his two targets. When he tries again, the shield dings and flashes blue.

o0O0o

First, Bellatrix doesn't notice the tall (abnormally so!) Asian man. When she does, the first thing she does against all odds – doesn't draw her wand. That doesn't mean her universal weapon isn't in immediate reach, she's a godforsaken criminal.

She doesn't think Potter notices him, he looks old and worn (the Asian that is) and doesn't necessarily register as a threat. Of course, Bellatrix knows old people and old-looking people and more than often they're more devious than a dragon's mother.

Potter is calm, but so is the Asian; on further thought they exude the same inner confidence and capable magic.

It's Potter's turn to cook dinner and breakfast, something with the pumpkins they may have borrowed without the intention of giving them back (Potter – sucker that he is – left an inordinate amount of the local currency instead).

So when Potter calmly and without further warning asks, "Are you staying for supper?" She is surprised, to say the least. She flinches, but the Asian is not visibly surprised.

He might also be asking her, but she's obviously staying for supper.

"Perhaps," the old man finally answers. He looks like he's deliberating his answer, but he's probably speaking a foreign language. "You are the man who looks for Death."

Potter looks at the man, and then carries on to stew the pumpkin. "There are lots of men who are looking for death," he says uncommitted.

"True," the Asian concedes. "Most of them find Death. You have not. You have found death, but you are not dead. So. You go looking for Death who has many names."

"I'm not sure I understand what you are saying."

The Asian clucks his tongue, as if scolding Potter for not listening, and at the same time, for not learning his language. "Silly boy," he scolds him. "You are thinking of business. Don't think of business, think of revenge. A life for a life. Death and you are not equal. You are made more with trickery."

Bellatrix thinks of stories and legends, of Morgana who could open the hills of the fae, and old witches who hid in the woods and gave their favour and curses to whom they pleased – she thinks of Snape and how he was miserly when he tried to avenge himself, and how he was miserly when he tried to redeem himself. She thinks how Barty joined them and his dad incarcerated him in Azkaban, he was rescued and finally killed his father, until he too was killed. She remembers hurling the tiny Sirius down the stairs (he must have been 3) and falling and breaking her tailbone. Uncle Orion had set them down and narrated the story of Spiddlefink and Fiddlespink, who betrayed each other, and themselves. And he said,"Think, before you act. Trust, but beware of the consequences. And don't ever embark on a feud."

She wonders if Sirius even remembered his father. She wonders why she killed so many. She wonders why she killed at all. She wonders, if her sister remembers the past more clearly than she – everything is a bit blurry after Hogwarts, only the parts with dark magic stand out.

She looks at Potter and sees Tom Riddle, a gangly teenager trying to torture her, and a truly good person. She wonders, if what they did to her was legal. She feels the depression is missing, and her children who weren't hers, who weren't even alive, and she doesn't long to grieve, doesn't long for revenge, doesn't long for a warm fire and a hot chocolate, but to protect Potter at the cost of her dignity – but strangely not her life.

The two men are talking, but she doesn't hear what they're saying – even when the rain falls she doesn't move under the provisional shelter Potter probably built. The rain is wet, and transforms the dry earth into mud – she feels it seeping along her legs, all over her body, and she's wet and cold floods into her bones, but it feels good, she feels good, she feels clean, and free, oh so very free.

o0O0o

Harry wants to ask the man, "So, who made you the living expert on how to deal with Death?" but he tries to follow the orders of strange old men – they always seem to be right.

He feels strong armed, though. He's also watching Bellatrix out of the corner of his eyes, because she seems to be acting strange.

"So what do you think I should do?" he asks the man.

The Asian flicks his finger against Harry's ear. Against all expectations, it hurts. "Not follow me, follow you."

"Follow me? How am I supposed to do that?"

The old man smiles. "Think. Meeting Death is not business, it is revenge from him."

"He wants to take revenge against me?" Harry asks incredulously. "But I didn't do anything!"

"Revenge because of cheating. He thinks not with head, but heart. Dangerous."

"He's Death, he doesn't have a heart!" Harry almost jumps up, he feels so angry, but the hand from the man on his breast stops him.

"Wrong," he says. "You silly boy are not listening." The man kneels down, into the mud, and with his crooked wand he draws what almost looks like a person on the ground. "This is you." Then, he gestures to all the mud around – it's a lot. "This Death." He looks up to Harry. "All things end with Death. But you don't die. You don't age. You don't end."

"I don't end?"

"No." The man looks sad. "You must make your end."

"What about the other immortals? Do they have to make their end, too? Does it involve magic? Do I need to be somewhere special?"

"Other immortals are not you. They have ends, purpose. You do purpose, you make end. It has magic, yes. You don't make the magic, you make purpose. Magic comes after."

"How do I make a purpose?"

"You don't make purpose. You do purpose. I don't know. It's not my…"

"That's not very helpful."

"It is good help. You do not listen." He puts down the bowl of pumpkin soup Harry didn't notice he had eaten. "It is very good soup. A purpose is like the soup. It takes time to do right." He stands, and the mud is left on the ground.

"Remember," he says. "You must make end."

Harry, who hasn't let Bellatrix out of his sight completely, calls after the man: "What did you do to Bellatrix?"

"She has purpose!" he hears, and in the blink of an eye, the old man is gone.

Like a faint echo, Harry hears in the distance: "You must make an end."

.

"Are you alright?" Potter asks, and she comes to.

There are no strange Asian men to be seen, she has unconsciously emptied her bowl of pumpkin soup, and she feels settled. Almost peaceful.

"What did you put into this soup?" she asks.

"Oh, well, there's pumpkin and tomatoes, ginger, garlic and onion, oranges..."

"Say no more," she interrupts him. "The ones I know are strange enough."

"Does it taste bad?"

"Nah," she answers, and gives him a grin with all her teeth, charmed white, because after all those years with bread and water, they'd look more brown then white, and she wouldn't want to imagine.

o0O0o

The next morning, the sky has cleared. That's the only positive occurrence, though, since the ground is wet, and the mud didn't magically lessen over-night. Harry's glad he can pin-point the carpet, which is thoroughly coated in a wet mud crust, and Bellatrix, whose hair stands even more and makes her look like some kind of mud monster, possibly like a (grindylow).

They find out that cleaning charms don't work all too well when the surrounding area is just as dirty. Bellatrix remembers a more intensive spell from her childhood, but can't recall the exact incantation.

So they continue onwards and upwards towards parts unknown, looking like brown flying statues.

They're wet, cold and dirty – whenever they move, the dirt falls off in clumps – and the only thing Harry wants is to call his children and see their faces.

The only thing that is there, however, is a landscape coated in umbra and gray, and it's so freaking depressing, it's almost funny.

"What is that?"

It's the first time Bellatrix speaks, since the disappearance of the old Asian. Harry looks up, but can't see anything out of the ordinary, that is, gray and brown colors. "I don't see anything."

"That's a fence," she tells him, and Harry squints. "I think it's made of bones."

"Bones?" Harry asks, and quickly goes through his spell repertoire, but he has nothing about zooming in, nor out – he didn't check his eyes for ages, and like his partner used to say: "Someday it's gonna bite you where it hurts." (He should have listened to him, he should have listened to Hermione, but that doesn't help him now, here, somewhere lost in the wilderness of this...)

Anyway. Bones mean death, and that's what he's looking for, right? But the old man said – (and since when does he believe old men he finds in the middle of nowhere, that vanish without a trace, and most importantly: insult a dangerous woman?)

"Yes," Bellatrix confirms. "Look, there's a head, and between its – jaws, there's a lamp light."

"I can't see anything," Harry repeats. "Are you sure it's there?"

After the look Bellatrix sends him, Harry snaps his mouth shut and thinks of Ginny – he counts to 47. "Do we know any female deities in Northern Russia?"

Bellatrix is visibly not impressed by his reasoning - "We're more south than anything," she says coldly. "Otherwise, you'd feel cold."

(Harry wants to complain that he feels cold, and really, isn't Russia generally closer to the North Pole than the equator? But he knows enough volatile and violent women to instinctively shut his mouth. On further thought: the more he speaks to Bellatrix the more her impeccable accent is spiraling towards the unequivocal mishmash Harry favors. And isn't that distressing.)

"But anyhow – I'm not sure if _we_ know any female Russian deities, but I _do_. There's the famed Baba Yaga."

"Mmh," Harry says quietly, thoughtfully. He wonders, if Bellatrix would mock him now, or if she would wait until he's asking and then feel all smug. She reminds him so much of Ginny he feels completely out of balance. (Not that he ever was balanced before – it's unbelievable what psych evaluations would diagnose you with.)

When no answer is forthcoming, he prompts his de-facto secretary: "Baba Yaga. Lives in a hut on chicken legs and revolutionized the charms for broomstick riding." (Did that only sound dirty in his own head?)

"While that is essentially true, it's like saying Australia is an island." She sighs. "But getting you to understand the nuances of the being that is the Kostianaja Noga would be time-wasting – she's a mother goddess. Also, a representation of Death."

Harry is silent for a moment. "It would be too easy, if I just..."

"Yes." Bellatrix interrupts him. "She doesn't have any say about who dies. Basically, she's the messenger."

"Yeah." Harry sighs. "Well. Anyway, let's go talk to her and listen to the cryptic advice that will be utterly unhelpful whatsoever. I miss feeling like an idiot."

.

Bellatrix literally has to push Harry into the open door – he's unable to see it. (Which might not be such a disadvantage. The door looks fairly disturbing, made of bones, sinews and dried muscles. What's more disgusting is that it seems to be made from human bones – or from apes – and Bellatrix recognizes them. There are also teeth.)

Bellatrix sees a tiny hut, cluttered full of junk that may have at some point been useful, but are centuries past that date. She sees pearls of an inch in diameter, hanging from the rafters. There's a sandwich dried up and vaguely greenish-gray looking, besides a bottle of green tincture. (Absinthe? Vulcanov's Wonderful Water? Algae?) A hag who almost looks like a sculpture fitted into the room – dressed in a bizarre and eclectic combination of finery and rags.

She wonders what Potter sees. It's probably spectacular, since he can't close his mouth.

Then, the witch turns around.

She must have the most striking eyes Bellatrix has ever seen – they're not even especially colored, just bright, intense and piercing.

"I wasn't expecting you."

Bellatrix flinches at the sound of the voice – in contrast to the eyes it's dark, colorful, but just as intense. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but..."

"You're searching for Death," she finishes and it's the first time her body moves. It's a move that could only be described as a shimmy (but normally Bellatrix would never use such an exasperating term) – the sculpture leaves her body, and she's the pillar that keeps the hut standing, and Harry breathes again. "You won't find him here. In fact, you won't find him on this journey."

"Not to be disrespectful, ma'am, but–" Bellatrix is cut off again.

"Call me Baba."

Bellatrix wouldn't dare call a being as intimidating as this one the diminutive of grandmother, and she feels helpless, but there's no way back only forward. "Not to be disrespectful, Baba, but..."

"You are. Disrespectful, I mean." Under different circumstances, Bellatrix might have called that grimace a smile. But Potter standing next to her was still staring like the ape he was.

"Baba," Bellatrix starts and doesn't know what to ask, so she kicks her companion, because he's the one that wanted to go into the den of a clearly extremely powerful millennia old deity.

"Uhh," he says, and stumbles, but at least he graduated to actually pronounce sounds instead of just staring. "Excuse us, Baba," he finally says. "But could you tell us why we won't find Death on this journey?"

"There's a legend," she tells them and sits down ("Tea?" she asks them, and obviously accustomed to Englishmen, she pours them black tea, and serves the cup with a pitcher of milk and lemon.) "It's a shame you don't know it – it has me aging a year whenever I'm asked a question."

She takes a sip of her own brew. (It's very good.)

"It's not true then," Bellatrix says.

The witch shoots her a disdainful look. "Not literally, no." She takes another sip, and continues her non-sequitur story. "There are lots of stories where I am the quest giver."

"You aren't here," Potter says.

The witch smiles. It's a lovely smile, very sweet and cumbersome. "Not literally, no. This is your journey. You make the way. But you weren't looking, and you weren't listening. The immortals gathered for you, but you had something else to do."

("I did?" Potter questions Bellatrix quietly.)

"So that's you're goal – you just mixed it up with prophecies and your ailment. You're a hero; and therefore you jumped at the call, if I may put it this way, but you followed the call the wrong direction, and you missed the clues."

She looks at Harry a little smug. "Maybe they thought, it looks like a teenager, it smells like a teenager, it must act like a teenager. Anyway, now you have to finish your journey for the journeys sake, because of course there are things you have to learn, skills that come in handy later on, but I can tell you now, you will have to meet your family before being able to meet Death. These kinds of things have rules."

"But how do I know what rules apply? This is unfair!"

"Exactly. This is how you learn. Listen, Harry James Potter. Remember. You'll do, in the end."

(And then, the Bone-woman ditched them beyond her sphere of influence with a roasted duck and potatoes and vanished before answering Potter's question about broom charms.)

o0O0o

"I think he's out of reach," Lily says.

"Since when do magical mirrors go out of reach?" Albus asks. "It's not like phone lines, or satellite areas." ("What's a satellite area?" Scorpius asks Milan, who answers, "Something Albus just pulled out of his very finely shaped behind.")

"We could call mum," Lily says doubtfully.

"We could also call Santa Claus and have an equally useless outcome." ("Who's Santa Claus?" Hugo wants to know. "It's either a fat man with elves or a bishop in ... somewhere. Sources were split.")

"Teddy. We could call Teddy," Lily says.

"Teddy!" James scoffs. "He's wrapped up in this Arthur business. We can't call him."

("Why do they want to call a plush bear?" - "Lysander, we're talking about Lupin? You know the almost-werewolf?" "Ahh! Wolfie! Why didn't you say so?")

"For fuck's sake, let's just explode the damn thing!"

It's telling for the process of the argument that although three voices certainly call: "Al, your language is slipping!" in various variations, all of them agree to the most destructive resolution.

(When the Prof finds out, he doesn't even assign detention... It's probably the only time someone got away with exploding _the _African Strangler. Cleopatra Addams would have been _mortified_.)

* * *

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End file.
